MODERNISM 

According  to  the  Law  of  Sensual  Impression 
and  Historical  Inspiration 


BY 
J.   J.   McCABE 

Author  of  Several  Small  Books  on  Science,  Political  Economy, 
Theology,  History,  and  of  Poetry  and  Music 


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*r    Oi_r  io    J2U  >, ,; 

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SOLD  BY 

JOSEPH  McDONOUGH 

BOOK  AND  PUBLISHING  Co. 

ALBANY,  N.  Y. 


PBBSS  or 

BBANDOW  FEINTING  COMPANY 
ALBANY,  N.  Y. 


Copyright  June  1910 
By  the  author 


The  Preface  was  taken  out  as  the  poem  will  answer  for  preface  and  introduction. 


ERRATA 


Page 

Line 

Wrong 

Right 

30 

'7 

Shades 

Shade 

35 

23 

West 

East 

40 

2 

Sunset 

Sun  set 

65 

22 

positions 

position 

US 

10 

blinding 

blending 

I37 

J7 

larger 

large 

144 

10 

form 

from 

144 

35 

continued 

continual 

i53 

21 

Sun  and  Earth 

Sun  or  Earth 

I  forgot  to  note  quotations  from  Joseph  McCabe's  life  of  St.  Augustine  about  num- 
ber of  Christians,  etc.,  page  131,  and  Primate  Secundus  page  147. 


THE  WORLD  ACCORDING   TO  HOMER 


THE  WORLD  BEFORE  THE  ICE  AGE 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 3 

Introduction 5 

Man  and  Beast 1 1 

Man  and  God 19 

Man  and  the  Earth 26 

Discovery  of  Barley 47 

Discovery  of  the  Compass 50-51 

Hearth  of  the  Universe  and  Fire  Worship 52 

Atland  or  Atlantis 53 

Pan  and  Pantheism 62-63 

Sons  of  God  and  Daughters  of  Men 67 

Pythagoras  and  Astronomy 69 

Angels 73 

Cycle  of  Eclipses  and  Avatars  or  Messiahs 75 

Serapis 79 

Genesis  and  Adam  and  Eve 80 

Augustus,  the  Messiah  of  the  Era  of  Peace  and  Good  Will  to  Man. .  88 

Destruction  of  Jerusalem 91 

Preface  of  Silas  the  Monk  who  had  been  at  the  Siege  of  Jerusalem  to 
the  Story  of  John  the  Presbyter  about  Jesus  and  the  Christian 

Brotherhood 96 

The  New  Religion — the  short  poem 139 

Interesting  notes  of  much  importance 141 

Carbon  Comet;  Comets  must  Come  Near  the  Earth  to  Affect  It  . .  142 

The  Four  Races  and  their  Wanderings 142 

The  Jewish  Legend  1 43 

Persecutions 144 

Constantine    145 

The  Heliocentric  Theory   148 

Sack  of  Rome 151 

Semi-Christian  Literature 154 

Lectures 156 


740469 


PREFACE 

There  is  nothing  novel  in  a  new  religion.  For  thousands  of 
years  new  religions  have  sprung  up  in  every  part  of  the  earth. 
Those  only  have  persisted  which  have  written  documents.  The 
only  ones  that  still  exist  have  books  similar  in  many  respects  to 
our  Bible.  As  many  different  sects  claim  to  draw  their  inspira- 
tion from  our  Bible,  so  in  like  manner,  numerous  sects  draw 
their  inspiration  from  the  other  Bibles  of  Asia  and  Africa. 

Upon  examination  we  find  that  none  of  these  Bibles  are  reliable. 
They  treat  of  history,  science,  ethics  and  the  knowledge  of  God, 
and  we  find  that  their  history,  science,  ethics  and  knowledge  of 
God  are  practically  worthless.  Therefore  if  it  be  necessary  to 
have  a  book  containing  truthful  history,  science,  ethics  and  the 
knowledge  of  God,  that  we  may  have  a  useful  religion,  all  these 
old  books  must  be  laid  aside  and  regarded  simply  as  ancient  litera- 
ture. If  a  book  containing  the  history  of  religion  be  essential,  in 
order  that  men  may  have  a  useful  guide  in  such  matters,  let  us 
have  a  book  that  will  give  us  the  history  of  religion,  as  near  as 
it  can  be  ascertained,  and  it  should  be  so  written  that  it  will  not 
need  any  one  to  help  the  reader  to  interpret  it.  The  new  religion 
should  assume  no  authority.  It  should  leave  every  one  free  to 
follow  the  dictates  of  reason  not  the  dictates  of  any  one  who 
assumes  to  have  authority  from  God,  but  it  must  inform  him  that 
it  will  be  obligatory  on  him  to  practice  morality.  Not  the  morality 
taught  by  the  examples  portrayed  in  some  of  these  old  Bibles  of 
men  whom  they  claim  were  formed  after  the  heart  of  God,  but 
virtue  and  morality  that  knowledge  and  experience  have  taught 
us  are  the  most  valuable. 

To  make  this  book  entertaining  as  well  as  instructive,  an  old 
legend  spoken  of  by  Plato  has  been  woven  into  the  text.  The 
use  of  such  words  as  are  frequently  found  necessary  by  men 
who  write  on  subjects  of  science,  have  been  avoided,  so  that  any 
person  who  can  read  can  understand  every  sentence  in  the  book. 
The  book  contains  a  brief  history  of  the  earth,  of  man,  and  of  his 


4  Preface 

religions.  If  natural  selection  can  be  called  a  law,*  so  can  sensual 
impression  under  similar  circumstances  no  less  infallible.  In  this 
sense  the  law  of  sensual  impression  implies  that  the  impressions 
received  through  the  senses  have  inspired  and  revealed  to  man 
all  the  knowledge  he  ever  possessed.  That  no  God  or  other  ex- 
ternal power  ever  revealed  any  knowledge  to  him  or  inspired  him 
to  write  anything.  All  claims  to  the  contrary  have  no  valid 
foundation  to  rest  upon,  ^^tongeeateg  part  of  the  work  was 
originally  written  in  a  sort  of  blank  verse ;  this  will  account  for 
the  style  of  writing. 


*Those  who  are  doubtful  about  the  law  of  natural  selection  have  never 
extended  their  investigations  into  the  field  of  micro-organic  life.  The 
battle  for  life  commenced  at  its  very  beginning  and  variability  followed. 


INTRODUCTION 

If  all  the  planets,  stars  and  comets  came 

From  neb'lous  gas  through  the  eternal  flame 

Of  elemental  law,  in  space  not  bound 

By  time  or  distance,  and  if  it  be  found 

That  atoms  are  endued  with  gravity 

And  motion  by  which  every  thing  we  see 

Throughout  the  earth  and  sky  above  adorned 

Without  the  aid  of  mind  supreme  was  formed, 

It  matters  not  to  ants  who  build  and  fight, 

And  work  through  longest  days  and  sleep  at  night. 

But  if  our  minds  can  higher  thoughts  embrace, 

To  view  the  earth  once  scattered  through  some  space, 

When  the  atoms  as  dust  in  stormy  spring 

Filled  the  heaven  in  wide  extending  ring; 

The  lighter  gases  from  the  rest  still  free, 

Transparent  flow  along  the  outer  sea; 

And  when  the  onward  surge  had  made  a  course 

By  overcoming  the  repelling  force, 

The  ebbing  tide  begat  cohesive  flow 

Of  heavy  atoms  to  the  center;  so 

The  nucleus  forms  of  the  gathering  motes, 

With  all  the  energy  their  mass  imports. 

The  mighty  structure  now  begins  to  rear 

Through  gravitations  work  throughout  the  sphere. 

Rushing  onward  shower  on  showers  pass 

Till  all  the  atoms  are  gathered  on  the  mass 

Of  ever  grinding  matter;  while  on  high 

The  liquid  clouds  in  fierce  confusion  fly. 

Soon  at  the  poles  and  on  every  side 

They  pour  upon  the  earth  a  ceaseless  tide, 

And  when  the  elemental  flood  had  drenched 

The  fiery  orb,  and  in  due  time  had  quenched 


Introduction 

The  seething  surface  of  the  plastic  ball, 

An  ocean  hot  extended  over  all. 

The  cooling  gases  as  through  space  they  roll, 

Electric  force  now  drives  to  both  the  poles; 

The  rapid  current  of  the  water  veers, 

And  sinks  the  bottom  and  the  land  appears. 

The  water  soon  bereft  of  boiling  glow, 

And  polar  winds  in  cooling  current  flow, 

Conditions  favor  and  the  slimy  shore 

Sees  life  animate  and  the  waters  more. 

As  age  on  age  advances,  seas  and  land 

With  reptiles,  fish  and  beasts  immensely  grand 

In  size,  the  earth  is  filled,  and  vines  and  trees 

Have  grown  apace,  and  near  the  poles  the  bees, 

And  birds  with  feathers  nip  the  seeding  grass 

And  flowering  bushes  as  some  ages  pass. 

Now  sweeping  through  the  sky  a  comet  steers 

And  on  the  bosom  of  the  main  appears, 

And  as  its  smoky  body  seems  to  pass, 

It  leaves  behind  a  cloud  of  carbon  gas; 

Again  commotion  swells  the  atmosphere, 

The  lands  now  sink  and  then  again  appear, 

The  stiffened  crust  is  rifted  and  the  fumes 

Of  fierce  volcanoes  rear  their  awful  plumes. 

Now  after  much  of  life  had  been  destroyed, 

And  time  in  raising  wood  had  been  employed, 

And  when  the  sun  had  poured  his  clearing  rays 

Upon  the  earth,  another  comet  sways 

Its  burning  head  against  the  orb  of  night, 

Absorbs  its  moisture,  burns  our  satellite. 

Its  tail  of  chlorine  gas  now  strikes  the  main 

And  through  the  atmospheric  link  maintained 

Much  of  the  debris  and  the  flowing  tide 

Which  erstwhile  gladdened  our  celestial  bride 

Is  poured  upon  the  earth  on  every  side. 

The  molten  matter  under  ocean's  bed 

Compressed  by  weight  it  shows  its  fiery  head, 

Through  all  its  chimneys  mounting  to  the  sky 

Through  heated  air  the  burning  volumes  fly. 


Introduction 

From  simple  cell,  through  evolutions  mode, 

To  forms  complex,  along  the  toilsome  road 

Of  many  ages,  moving  life  had  run 

Through  water,  land  and  air,  and  now  the  sun 

Beholds  the  tree  of  life  on  topmost  span 

Give  out  the  bud  that  blossoms  into  man. 

He  is  an  ape  in  form  and  nothing  more, 

That  hunger  cast  upon  the  briny  shore; 

His  canine  friend,  a  teacher  and  a  slave 

Devours  the  carcass  that  the  surging  wave 

Throws  on  the  beach;  the  imitative  ape 

By  hunger  prest,  of  the  same  meats  partake. 

Soon  shell  fish  wholesome  greet  his  appetite 

And  stone  and  stick  resist  crustacean  bite. 

The  hands  are  used  to  gather  up  the  dead, 

Much  walking  thus,  evolves  the  great  biped. 

The  taste  once  formed  upon  the  sandy  beach 

His  lasting  home  is  made  far  from  the  reach 

Of  wild  ferocious  beasts,  and  here  began 

The  march  that  made  the  foot,  hand  and  mind  of  man. 

The  social  dog  whose  stomach  cannot  bide 

A  load  too  heavy  laps  the  briny  tide 

Or  blooming  herbage  to  relieve  his  pain; 

Man's  quick  perception  notes,  nor  tries  in  vain; 

The  art  of  healing;  but  the  dog  was  wise 

Through  age  when  apes  put  on  the  human  guise. 

Instinct  the  fruit  of  painful  knowledge  gained 

Through  nature's  laws  the  canine  tribe  had  trained; 

Imitation  the  fruit  of  cunning  sense, 

To  artifice  resorts  for  recompense. 

And  so  the  man  of  medicine  supposed 

A  charm,  a  fetich,  in  the  herb  reposed. 

Through  cunning  art  he  frightened  or  he  charmed. 

His  friends  and  foes  when  he  was  alarmed 

While  in  the  early  state.     The  stick  or  bone 

That  killed  a  fish  or  brute;  or  the  stone 

In  hand  that  crushed  a  creeping  monster's  shell 

Was  deemed  much  greater  than  the  hand  that  held. 


Introduction 

The  dog  was  his  first  totem,  then  the  stone, 
The  club  he  wielded  then  his  mother's  bone. 
Those  were  his  gods,  nor  had  he  learned  to  stake 
Much  thought  on  things,  but  for  his  stomach's  sake. 
The  sun  unwelcome,  poured  its  burning  ray, 
And  torpid  sleep  o'erpowered  him  through  the  day; 
The  watchful  dog  attended,  and  at  night 
When  o'er  the  foaming  sea  the  moon's  fair  light 
Appeared,  he  spoke  his  welcome  or  his  fear 
By  constant  barking.     When  the  sky  was  clear 
The  thick  skulled  biped  saw  the  changing  moon 
With  solemn  awe,  and  close  attention  soon 
Inspired  love,  while  misconception's  eye 
Caused  him  to  name  it  mother  in  the  sky. 
And  thus  the  moon  while  on  the  beach  they  trod 
Became  their  nightly  friend,  their  first  sky  god. 
Exploring  soon  the  river's   bank,   his  hand 
Through  forests  slays  the  reptiles  of  the  land. 
Onward  his  course  on  beach  and  river  road, 
Still  pushed  by  hunger  to  a  new  abode. 

The  burned  moon  is  dead,  and  round  the  poles 
Of  earth  the  ice  heaps  up  as  on  it  rolls 
With  cooling  air  and  no  bending  axis, 
Till  the  mass  of  frozen  fluid  taxes 
One  of  the  poles  with  greater  weight  than  the 
Other,  then  the  axis  bends  and  the  sea 
Its  currents  change,  these  lash  the  lower  lands 
Of  southern  parts,  till  the  rocky  bands 
That  hold  the  seas  apart  are  swept  away, 
One  mighty  ocean  now  holds  supreme  sway. 
The  frozen  zones  now  warm  beneath  the  gaze 
Of  stronger  sun  and  the  electric  rays 
Push  the  moving  earth  farther  into  space 
As  on  the  bulky  north  he  turns  his  face, 
But  when  the  southern  hemisphere  is  tossed 
To  face  the  sun,  his  ray  in  ocean's  lost. 
The  tilting  globe  thus  yearly  on  its  run 
Goes  nearer  and  comes  farther  from  the  sun. 


Introduction 

Before  the  polar  atmosphere  was  chilled, 

And  ice  and  snow  the  greater  regions  filled, 

Man's  time  was  measured  by  the  changing  moon 

Three  days  'twas  lost  when  near  the  sun,  as  soon 

As  the  young  moon  showed  its  silvery  light 

His  time  began  and  ended  on  the  night 

It  disappeared;  nine  hundred  moons  the  span 

Of  aged  life  of  the  Primeval  man. 

The  new  moon  and  the  full  he  ever  cheers 

As  gladsome  cycles  in  his  growing  years; 

His  days  and  weeks  come  later,  but  the  boon 

Shows  that  we  are  still  servants  of  the  moon. 

When  the  icy  blast  of  winter  had  begun 

To  chill  him  and  his  former  foe,  the  sun 

His  friendly  praise  received  and  worship  true. 

His  mode  of  counting  time  was  altered  too. 

As  the  cooling  moon  had  been  his  mother, 

Now  the  warming  sun  is  his  sky  father. 

The  moon  was  Ma  in  promiscuous  days, 

The  sun  is  Pa  because  the  father  sways. 

His  thoughts  and  acts  in  varied  course  advance 

The  child  of  nature  and  of  circumstance. 

His  arts  were  learned  from  lower  forms  of  life 

His  sacred  wisdom  from  phenomena  rife. 

Through  the  law  of  sensual  impression, 

Mind,  hand  and  tongue,  formed  a  crude  expression 

Of  the  things  he  heard  and  felt  and  saw; 

Thus  infantile  perception  made  a  law 

Of  theologic  art,  which  ages  wise 

Through  strength  of  cult  and  class  dare  not  despise. 

Love  of  power  and  base  presumptuous  art 

Enslaves  the  brain  and  petrifies  the  heart; 

Thus  link  by  link  upon  the  mental  blind; 

The  chain  was  forged  that  fetters  heart  and  mind. 

Through  ignorance  and  superstitious  awe 

The  brave  have  fallen  'neath  the  vengeful  law. 

Some  wiser  teachers  than  in  former  age 

As  time  advances  come  upon  the  stage; 


io  Introduction 

And  for  their  wisdom  and  heroic  part 

In  chains  they're  bound  and  gored  through  the  heart; 

The  highest  thought  oft  in  the  bosom's  urned 

For  if  'twere  uttered  at  the  stake  they  burned. 

The  pride  and  malice  of  the  few  delude 

And  spreads  as  leaven  mongst  the  multitude; 

On  rush  the  clannish  slaves  with  vengeful  roar, 

And  ev'ry  land  is  drenched  with  human  gore. 

Thus  runs  the  story  since  the  world  began 

To  times  not  distant  of  the  earth  and  man. 

The  earth  was  flat  the  stellar  world  was  glass 

Till  Magellan's  ship  around  the  globe  did  pass, 

And  Galileo's  strong  prophetic  eye 

Drew  near  the  stars  and  opened  up  the  sky. 

The  ocean  now  became  the  great  highway 

For  hardy  souls  from  persecution's  sway, 

With  aspirations  of  a  noble  kind, 

They  staked  their  lives  for  freedom  of  the  mind, 

A  land  unknown  had  risen  from  the  sea, 

A  fitting  home  for  poor  humanity; 

And  here  the  gospel  new  was  made  to  say 

By  right  divine  no  man  should  ever  sway 

The  slogan  thus  gone  forth,  with  giant  stride 

Of  mighty  genius,  art  and  science  ride, 

And  mount  the  heavens  in  this  latter  time, 

With  telescope,  and  with  the  sharper  eye 

The  smallest  things  that  live  descry. 


CHAPTER  I 
MAN  AND  BEAST 

Man  is  an  intelligent  animal,  in  terms  of  compliment  he  is 
called  a  rational  being.  A  living  soul  is  the  name  that  theology 
has  given  him.  With  no  knowledge  or  remembrance  of  a 
former  existence  he  comes  into  the  world  and  he  leaves  it 
against  his  will  and  consent.  As  a  rocket  sent  into  the  upper 
atmosphere  he  tries  to  mount  the  heavens  on  an  illuminated 
pathway,  but  he  meets  resistance  every  step  he  takes  and  when 
the  vital  force  of  his  nature  is  consumed  he  falls  to  the  earth 
a  useless  mass  of  foul  decaying  matter,  and  his  name  and  path 
which  he  may  have  deemed  immortal  are  soon  forgotten. 

Although  the  individual's  life  is  of  but  short  duration,  yet 
he  has  joy,  pleasure,  comfort,  and  at  times  ecstatic  delight.  He 
also  experiences  pain,  sorrow,  desolation  and  want.  He  is  the 
most  important  thing  in  the  world  to  himself,  but  he  is  often 
the  least  important  to  every  one  else.  He  is  at  times  a  mes- 
senger of  joy  and  happiness  to  his  friends  and  countrymen; 
at  other  times  he  is  a  fiend  of  strife,  hate  and  destruction  to 
them.  He  acts  and  is  acted  upon  by  everything  that  surrounds 
him.  He  is  circumscribed  in  power  and  influence  physically 
and  intellectually,  by  shortness  of  life,  education,  ignorance  and 
many  other  circumstances.  In  thought  and  aspiration,  in  desire 
and  hope  his  mind  is  unlimited  by  time,  space,  or  condition  in 
life.  In  his  mind's  eye,  although  but  a  young  school  boy, 
with  bounding  impulse  he  sees  himself  elevated  to  the  highest 
position  in  the  gift  of  his  countrymen.  With  that  eye  he  looks 
out  into  space  far  beyond  the  ken  of  the  most  powerful  instru- 
ment it  is  possible  to  construct,  and  no  gilded  microscope  will 
ever  be  invented  that  can  reveal  the  ethereal  forms  his  mind 
is  conscious  of  having  seen.  And  yet  he  is  accounted  by  those 
who  have  used  him  as  a  football  as  only  a  moving  clod  or 
animated  dust.  He  has  eyes,  ears,  taste,  feeling  and  reason, 

ii 


1 2  Modernism 

yet  he  cannot  comprehend  his  own  blindness,  meanness,  cow- 
ardice, hypocrisy,  and  mental  and  social  servility.  This  is  a 
picture  of  man  from  a  philosophical  standpoint. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  soulless  brute,  with  whom  it  is  claimed 
that  man  is  not  linked  by  ties  of  hereditary  connection.  In 
what  does  man  differ  from  the  beasts  of  the  forests,  the  insects 
and  birds  of  the  air,  the  reptiles  of  the  mire  and  earth,  and  the 
fishes  of  the  waters?  They  can  feel,  hear,  see,  smell  and  taste 
with  more  acuteness;  they  can  distinguish  quality,  color,  form, 
all  varieties  of  odor,  capacity  and  power  in  all  things  that 
minister  to  their  wants  or  that  can  injure  or  destroy  them. 
They  have  reason,  memory  and  will  power.  Their  process  of 
reasoning  is  the  same.  If  eye,  ear,  or  nose  convince,  decision 
as  quickly  follows.  If  the  thinking  power  be  strong  and  the 
senses  weaker,  decision  halts  to  council  with  courage,  fear, 
cunning  and  experience.  They  fight  and  make  war  individually 
and  collectively,  as  two  men  or  as  opposing  armies.  They 
play,  sing,  teach,  caress  each  other  and  enjoy  companionship. 
Many  of  them  labor  from  early  dawn  until  the  evening's  twi- 
light. Others  prowl  at  night,  and  there  are  loafers  who  bask 
in  the  sun  or  sleep  in  the  shade  until  the  pangs  of  hunger 
compel  them  to  look  for  something  to  eat.  Many  are  also 
provident  in  their  habits;  they  harvest  fruit,  nuts  and  seeds, 
and  store  them  away  for  winter  use.  Without  instruments 
they  cut  down  trees,  build  bridges,  houses,  cities,  submarine 
walls,  dams  and  tunnels.  They  spin,  weave,  distill  and  manu- 
facture. They  have  love  of  kind  and  kindred,  social  habits 
and  sympathy  for  the  injured  and  helpless.  They  can  love 
and  protect  a  friend,  resent  an  insult  and  hate  an  enemy.  They 
rejoice  and  express  their  emotions  in  actions  marvellously  plain, 
and  are  touched  with  sorrow  in  the  presence  of  the  dead. 

In  what  then  is  man  greater  than  that  which  he  calls  an 
animal?  It  is  not  necessary  to  ask  if  he  can  change  the  order 
of  the  heavens  to  prove  that  he  is  limited  in  physical  and 
intellectual  power.  No,  we  need  not  compare  him  to  the 
eternal  world-constructing,  life-expressing  power  which  is  mani- 
fest in  the  phenomena  of  nature,  to  show  how  feeble  he  is  in 
some  respects.  If  comparison  be  useful  in  this  regard,  let  us 
compare  him  with  some  of  the  animal  forms  he  is  familiar 
with.  Can  he  dig  up  the  earth  with  his  nose  as  a  mole  or 


Man  and  Beast  13 

hog?  As  the  beaver,  cut  down  trees  with  his  teeth?  Distil 
honey  and  manufacture  wax  as  the  bee?  Weave  a  silken  cover 
for  his  own  body  as  the  worm?  Spin  a  thread  and  form  a  net 
as  the  spider?  Build  a  hinged  box  from  the  product  of  his 
stomach  as  the  clam?  Propel  himself  against  the  current  of 
a  rapidly  running  stream  as  a  trout?  Launch  himself  on  the 
ocean's  wave  and  sail  upon  its  surface  as  the  nautilus?  Mount 
the  air  and  contend  successfully  with  the  stormy  gale  as  the 
bird? 

The  structural  form,  color  and  specific  capacity  of  each  of 
these  was  given  to  it  by  ancestral  environment.  The  lives  of 
their  ancient  "ancestors  were  preserved  by  their  desire  to  live, 
their  ability  to  cope  with,  and  accommodate  themselves  to  all 
the  conditions  of  their  surroundings.  In  their  effort  to  sustain 
life  the  pig  became  a  ploughman  and  tiller  of  the  soil.  The 
beaver  a  wood-feller  and  mason.  The  bee  a  botanist  and  dis- 
tiller. The  spider  a  spinner  and  designer,  and  the  silk  worm 
a  fabricator.  In  fact,  nearly  every  art,  even  the  art,  of  govern- 
ment is  exhibited  in  the  homes  and  haunts  of  the  various  forms 
of  insect  life.  Therefore  it  is  clearly  manifest  that  man  with 
all  the  cunning  of  his  hands,  the  keenness  of  his  senses,  the 
genius  of  his  mind,  the  power  and  capacity  of  his  muscles,  and 
the  loftiness  of  his  conceit,  can  only  partially  imitate  that  which 
he  calls  a  worthless  insect  or  dirty  beast. 

In  what  is  man  superior  to  the  animal?  He  is  more  exalted 
in  special  degrees  of  sentiment.  He  is  more  versatile  in  intel- 
lectual power  and  genius.  In  the  hand  and  foot  he  is  the 
master  of  all  animals.  But  it  was  the  necessities  of  his  animal 
progenitors  which  gave  to  him  that  hand  and  foot,  and  these 
hands  and  feet  with  all  their  wonderful  capacity  have  developed 
the  brain  and  body,  and  placed  man  in  the  high  position  he 
now  occupies  as  lord  and  master  of  the  earth.  Like  character 
of  advantages  and  vicissitudes  which  gave  to  the  horse  a  hoof, 
gave  to  man  a  foot  superb,  with  a  muscular  lever  which  has 
given  him  power  to  obtain  and  maintain  the  upright  posture 
and  to  travel  through  all  the  solid  parts  of  the  earth. 

If  the  weak  and  distant  ancestors  of  man  any  time  before 
the  ape  type  had  become  fixed  in  form,  had  been  compelled 
to  make  the  hard  or  rocky  desert  of  the  earth  his  home  and 
permanent  abode,  he  would  now  have  feet  like  the  horse,  goat 


1 4  Modernism 

or  cattle.  And  if  our  apish  progenitors  had  remained  dwellers 
in  the  forests,  an  ape  he  still  would  be  and  nothing  more, 
because  he  found  safety  at  the  seashore  from  the  jaws  of  fierce 
carnivorous  beasts,  where  he  was  compelled  to  subsist  on  the 
bounty  of  the  tidal  wave  and  the  shelly  creeper  in  the  shallow 
bay,  and  finding  no  trees  to  climb,  was  compelled  to  stay  on 
the  ground  continually.  These  were  the  proper  conditions  to 
bring  about  strength  of  loin,  full  development  of  the  foot,  and 
also  the  maintenance  of  the  upright  posture.  And  the  ape 
like  man  or  man  like  ape  who  first  put  a  point  on  a  stick  with 
a  sharp  shell  or  stone  or  with  his  teeth,  to  use  in  killing  fish, 
took  the  first  step  and  performed  the  first  act,  in  the  great 
drama  of  the  gradual  development  of  that  quick  inventive 
genius  which  has  transformed  the  earth  from  a  vast  domain 
of  wild  beasts  and  boundless  forests,  to  a  garden  of  pleasure 
and  a  living  monument  of  human  glory. 

But  it  is  claimed  that  all  this  evidence  of  human  glory  is 
but  the  reflex  of  the  divine  spark  which  is  contained  in  the 
human  soul.  If  the  divine  spark  is  encompassed  by  the  skull, 
or  located  in  any  distinct  part  of  the  human  body,  that  spark 
must  have  been  transmitted  to  us  through  our  brutal  ancestors, 
not  by  any  special  act  human  or  divine.  So  that,  if  human 
creatures  have  souls  so  has  an  ape,  a  dog,  an  elephant,  a  horse, 
a  parrot,  a  bird,  snake,  fish  and  worm.  In  fact  all  things  have 
souls  that  contain  either  life  or  the  potential  elements  of  it,  if 
man  has  one.*  What  proof  have  we  of  this?  The  proofs  of 
it  are  that,  in  our  appetites,  senses,  propensities,  sentiments  and 
aspirations  we  are  purely  earthborn  animals.  If  young  animals 
only  know  enough  to  make  an  effort  to  get  something  to 
satisfy  their  hunger;  does  an  infant  know  as  much?  If  they 
can  taste,  feel,  hear  and  see  and  smell  with  their  senses,  can 
any  human  being  do  more?  No;  the  powers  of  his  senses 
are  feeble  and  almost  impotent  when  compared  with  some  in 
the  animal  kingdom.  In  all  the  propensities  and  passions  how 
much  is  man  greater  than  the  brute?  If  the  tiger  and  other 
carnivorous  animals  will  destroy  life  to  appease  their  hunger, 
man  also  will  destroy  even  human  life  for  the  same  purpose. 
Yes,  human  life  he  will  destroy  for  a  mere  insult,  or  to  get 


*This  is  not  an  argument  against  the  existence  of  the  soul. 


Man  and  Beast  15 

possession  of  a  small  amount  of  money  or  property.  He  will 
kill  his  fellow  man  for  a  mere  difference  of  opinion. 

Every  organized  war  that  has  taken  place  in  the  world,  is 
a  demonstration  of  the  fact  that  man  is  as  bloodthirsty,  as 
savage,  and  as  inconsiderate  of  the  sufferings  of  the  wounded, 
the  tears  and  sorrowful  bereavement  of  fathers,  mothers,  broth- 
ers, sisters,  wives,  children  and  friends,  as  the  most  ferocious 
beast  in  the  wide  domain  of  animals.*  There  is  no  base  form 
of  fraud,  cunning  duplicity  or  treachery  that  any  brute  was  ever 
addicted  to,  that  man  has  not  only  equaled,  but  excelled  him 
in.  And  even  in  the  higher  sentiments  as  love,  friendship,  care 
of  the  young  and  helpless,  self-sacrifice,  also  fidelity  and  hon- 
esty, man  is  not  superior  to  some  animals. 

Man  is  indebted  to  his  animal  ancestors  for  his  great  mechan- 
ical genius.  From  the  ape  he  has  received  the  faculty  of  imita- 
tion. The  ape  has  also  bestowed  upon  him  the  hand  which 
has  enabled  him  to  perform  the  work,  mechanical  manipulations 
and  action  of  other  animals  without  which  his  faculty  of  imita- 
tion would  not  have  been  any  more  use  to  him  than  it  is  to 
the  parrot.  Let  us  see  what  this  power  of  imitation  has  done 
for  him.  If  he  cuts  down  trees  for  the  purpose  of  building 
a  house  or  bridge  it  is  because  he  first  saw  a  beaver  do  that 
kind  of  work.  If  he  builds  himself  a  hut  it  is  because  he  saw 
insects  employed  at  such  labor.  He  merely  tried  to  construct 
a  larger  domicile  on  the  same  principle  and  style  and  of  like 
materials.  Has  he  made  a  net  to  catch  fish  or  anything  else 
with?  It  is  because  he  first  saw  a  spider  weave  a  net  to  catch 
flies  and  other  insects.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  spider,  it 
is  doubtful  if  the  human  family  would  have  discovered  the 
principle  on  which  are  fabricated  the  various  materials  from 
which  our  garments  are  made.  If  man  had  never  seen  a  clam, 
it  is  possible  that  he  would  never  have  known  the  use  of  a 
hinge.  He  even  tried  to  make  himself  look  like  a  tiger,  and 
a  leopard  by  besmearing  his  face  and  body  with  juice  and 
colored  earths. 

With  a  different  aspiration  there  are  many  now  whom  it 
would  be  very  ungallant  to  rebuke,  who  would  not  deign  to 
appear  in  public  without  a  fair  complexion  and  an  artificial 

*This  does  not  apply  to  man  under  all  circumstances. 


1 6  Modernism 

rose-blush  on  their  cheeks.  So  it  appears  that  man's  most 
useful  teachers  and  inspirers  were  the  animals  that  surrounded 
him.  If  they  sang  and  made  delightful  music,  that  suggested 
and  he  imitated.  If  they  built  houses  or  in  any  other  way  or 
manner  employed  themselves  at  any  kind  of  useful  labor,  he 
merely  tried  to  imitate  their  work.  Wherever  man  was  found 
in  his  primitive  home,  if  nature  there  is  poor  in  vocal  bird  and 
constructing  animal,  there  is  man  found  poverty  stricken  in 
voice  and  in  mechanical  taste.  Where  nature  was  strong,  rich 
and  beautiful,  there  was  he  found  in  full  harmony  with  his 
environments.  If  all  these  things  be  admitted,  yet  it  is  claimed 
that  man  has  aspirations  which  could  not  have  been  derived 
from  insects,  birds,  brutes,  or  any  other  animal  as  an  heirloom. 
This  claim  is  as  full  of  error  as  any  yet  put  forth.  Man  is 
an  epitome  of  all  life  that  has  existed  on  this  earth.  He  is  the 
most  perfect  life-breathing  conglomerate  structure  in  the  world. 
His  desires,  hopes,  aspirations,  acts  and  feelings,  are  but  the 
manifestations  of  the  demand  of  the  animals  of  whom  he  is 
constructed.  In  other  words,  it  is  to  satisfy  the  demands  of 
all  the  species  who  have  their  characters  added  and  their  modes 
of  action  in  the  building  up  of  the  human  structure  that  every 
effort,  hope  and  aspiration  of  the  heart  and  brain  has  been 
directed,  felt  .and  expressed.  The  insects  and  others  who  lay 
up  provisions  for  the  rainy  season,  have  transmitted  the  desire 
to  us,  to  do  the  same.  Those  who  make  no  attempt  to  provide 
for  the  stormy  day,  have  bequeathed  the  inclination  to  us  to 
spend  as  we  go,  and  gather  that  only  which  we  need  to-day. 
Our  wish  to  be  upon  the  water  and  to  plunge  into  the  foaming 
breakers,  comes  from  the  fish  who  still  live  within  us.  The 
desire  to  gaze  upon  beautiful  colors  has  been  transmitted  to 
us  from  many  birds,  insects,  fishes  and  some  others.  Every 
thing  that  feels,  desires  to  live,  and  why  not  we?  Yet  man 
has  not  attained  the  great  age  of  parrot,  elephant  or  whale; 
nor  of  some  creeping  reptiles.  If  man  is  vain,  desirous  of 
fame,  applause  and  commendation  from  his  friends  and  fellow- 
men,  that  desire  has  been  transmitted  to  him  from  all  the  higher 
races  that  have  lived.  If  man  be  friendly,  self-sacrificing  and 
benevolent,  it  is  that  the  bird,  dog,  ape  and  other  animals  have 
bequeathed  those  qualities  to  him.  Is  he  a  reasoner?  So  is 
a  parrot,  a  fox,  a  dog,  a  monkey  and  an  elephant.  Can  he 


Man  and  Beast  1 7 

imitate  sounds  with  his  voice?  Cannot  the  parrot  and  mocking 
bird  do  the  same?  Can  he  imitate  the  pathological  conditions, 
the  passions,  and  sportive  and  social  actions  of  man  and  beast? 
So  can  a  chimpanzee.  The  carrier  pigeon  who  cleaves  the  air 
with  its  wings,  and  glides  through  space  with  the  swift  velocity 
of  a  hot  descending  meteor,  has  given  us  the  desire  to  follow 
his  example.  To  fulfil  this  desire  and  aspiration,  man  has 
utilized  the  horse,  the  railroad  car,  the  steamboat,  balloon  and 
automobile.  It  is  only  in  the  telegraph  that  he  has  outshipped 
the  speed  of  the  bird.  The  aspiration  to  soar  above  the  din, 
smoke  and  impure  atmosphere  of  thronging  cities  and  to  be 
alone  among  the  gilded  clouds  in  the  pure  ethereal  expanse, 
has  been  transmitted  to  us  by  the  singing,  soaring,  skylark.  If 
there  be  an  everliving  and  all  prevailing  intelligence,  that  silent 
and  unseen  architect  of  worlds  has  manifested  its  genius,  power 
and  capacity  to  mankind  throu'gh  his  natural  teachers  the 
vegetable  and  animal  forms  of  earth,  and  the  sun,  moon  and 
stars  of  the  heavens. 

These  facts  need  no  demonstration.  It  was  truly  said  that 
nothing  comes  from  nothing.  Therefore  every  emotion  and 
aspiration  of  the  heart  and  brain  springs  from  something.  This 
is  no  mystery  when  we  understand  that  man  is  a  structure  that 
it  has  taken  ages  and  ages  to  build  up,  and  that  in  the  building 
of  this  human  edifice  through  the  slow  and  painful  process  of 
evolution,  that  every  species  that  preceded  his  advent,  con- 
tributed the  strongest  element  of  its  character  to  the  erection 
of  this  animal  temple  in  which  vegetable  and  animal  life  are 
embodied  and  represented. 

If  these  external  shadows  do  not  bring  conviction  to  the 
doubtful  mind,  let  us  look  into  the  man  himself,  and  see  of 
what  material  he  is  made.  Now  view  the  embryonic  infant  with 
the  eye  of  a  true  anatomist.  First  appears  the  human  germ 
of  life  in  substance  form  and  properties  the  same  as  in  other 
animals.  A  microscopic  cell.  Then  a  fish  and  the  character 
of  reptile  and  a  bird.  The  change  continues  upward  to  carni- 
vorous cat  or  dog;  and  then  the  ape  appears  and  after  shedding 
its  downy  coat  of  hair  it  comes  into  the  world  a  weak  and  puny 
infant.  After  birth  it  is  a  sucker  and  then  a  creeping  thing. 
It  squeals,  croaks,  and  chirps  and  finally  bleats  like  a  young 
kid  or  lamb.  If  by  an  omnipotent  fiat,  the  first  man  was  ere- 


1 8  Modernism 

ated  perfect  in  mind  and  body  without  hereditary  connection 
with  any  other  form  of  life,  why  should  we  have  rudimentary 
muscles  in  our  feet  and  legs  like  those  of  an  ape?  In  our 
back  like  a  bird?  In  our  eyes  like  a  cat?  In  our  ears  like  a 
dog?  In  our  wrists  and  ankles  like  a  squirrel?  A  useless  sack 
at  the  end  of  our  intestines?  Rudimentary  muscles  in  our  skin 
like  all  furbearing  animals?  And  a  tail  like  any  monkey  though 
it  be  quite  short?  There  is  not  one  of  these  muscles  or  other 
appendages  that  is  not  an  injury  to  us.  They  are  the  seat  and 
cause  of  many  of  the  diseases  that  human  life  is  subject  to. 
If  man  were  not  the  offspring  of  a  whole  series  of  animal 
ancestors,  he  would  not  have  or  possess  these  fragmentary  heir- 
looms. 


CHAPTER  II 
MAN  AND  GOD 

As  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants  had  taught  the  savage  useful 
lessons,  so  the  heavens  stimulated  the  dawning  spark  of  intel- 
lectual light  and  slowly  developed  the  poet's  faculty  of  imag- 
ination. Although  its  power  has  enslaved  the  mind  to  error 
and  deep  and  darksome  ignorance  and  fear,  it  nourished  the 
budding  power  of  speech  in  the  almost  speechless  biped  whose 
feeble  course  now  leads  onward  through  all  the  realm  of  nature. 
By  the  law  of  sensual  impression  we  will  trace  his  pathway 
through  his  many  stages  of  development,  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest  limits.  In  the  misty  track  of  time  now  traceless, 
before  the  earth  had  become  the  abode  of  winter's  chilling  blast 
and  moving  seas  of  ice,  traveling  here  on  the  shores  of  some 
of  the  ancient  seas  was  a  creature  who  all  the  prophetic  attributes 
of  a  human  being  possessed.  He  was  a  fisherman.  No  other 
profession,  trade  or  religion  had  he.  Aspiration,  desire  or  am- 
bition had  he  not  that  was  not  felt  by  some  other  animals. 
Too  luminous  was  the  sun  and  its  heat  too  intense  for  him 
in  his  low  estate  to  regard  it  other  than  a  great  devouring 
demon  of  fire. 

As  most  of  his  mammalian  contemporaries,  he  was  a  prowler 
by  night,  and  slept  during  the  heat  of  the  day.  When  the 
shade  of  evening  began  to  fall,  and  the  cooling  wind  flowed 
in  over  the  sea,  restoring  muscular  power  to  animate  nature, 
his  drowsy  limbs  he  stretched  then  sallied  forth  to  gather  his 
nightly  provender.  At  that  stage  of  his  existence  he  lived 
principally  on  shell  fish.  After  satisfying  the  angry  craving 
of  his  stomach  he  sat  on  the  sea  beach  and  gazed  with  bewild- 
ering emotion  on  the  scene  of  glory  spread  out  on  the  star- 
bespangled  heavens,  whilst  the  falling  dew  bathed  and  refreshed 
his  body.  The  changeful  moon,  sailing  silently  beneath  the 
stars  he  watched  with  constant  interest  and  ever-increasing  won- 

19 


20  Modernism 

der.  But  as  time  rolled  on,  slowly  he  began  to  note  that  many 
shell  fish,  the  choicest  of  his  food,  grew  fat  and  well  flavored 
as  the  luminary  of  night  increased  from  new  moon  to  full,  and 
when  the  sun  arose,  he  saw  that  every  star  grew  dim,  and 
every  other  light  in  heaven  went  out,  and  to  deep  water  the 
fish  all  fled  or  hid  beneath  the  rocks  and  stones.  Reasoning 
from  what  he  saw  and  felt,  the  sun  was  a  demon  powerful  and 
bad.  Having  begun  to  gain  some  knowledge  of  the  heavens 
the  various  changes  which  occur  in  the  illuminated  face  of  the 
moon  to  him  became  the  most  august  subject  of  cogitation. 
Why  not  begin  to  think  and  chatter  when  he  saw  its  increase 
brought  him  longer  brighter  light,  and  a  plentitude  of  food? 
And  its  decrease  lingering  darkness  and  a  scant  supply  of 
bivalves,  lobsters,  shrimps  and  crabs. 

It  does  not  require  the  wisdom  of  a  philosopher  to  demon- 
strate that  the  moon  was  the  most  interesting  object  in  the 
universe  to  primeval  man.  But  should  it  be  asked  why  it  was 
the  most  conspicuous,  the  answer  is  plain  that,  in  contradis- 
tinction of  all  other  objects  seen,  it  was  continually  changing 
both  as  to  its  size  and  form  and  also  in  its  time  and  place  of 
rising.  Man's  first  cognizance  of  events  such  as  these  arose 
from  his  perfect  power  of  observance,  and  the  natural  habit  of 
reasoning  by  comparison.  In  this  regard  the  moon  in  its 
monthly  course  suggested  to  him  the  notion  of  time,  because 
as  an  observing  animal  he  could  generalize  in  a  degree,  and 
he  incidentally  connected  its  various  changes  with  his  own  life 
interests.  Now  every  new  moon  became  an  epoch  in  his  life, 
and  was  soon  hailed  with  joyous  greetings  and  ejaculations  of 
delight.  If  with  these  circumstances  the  tiny  crescent  moon 
became  the  sign  for  the  beginning  of  a  period  whose  intervening 
days  and  nights  were  not  known  or  numbered,  so  later  on,  the 
full  moon  as  it  arose  was  hailed  with  joy,  and  as  it  sank  behind 
the  western  mountains  they  kissed  their  hands  as  to  a  good 
and  generous  friend  departing. 

Simple  as  were  these  manifestations  of  joy  and  friendly  grati- 
tude, yet  as  time  moved  on  and  man  developed  to  a  higher 
state  they  grew  into  festivals  observed  by  every  nation — Egyp- 
tian, Greek,  Hebrew  and  Roman.  All  the  ancient  tribes  and 
people  who  gravitated  from  the  low  savage  state  of  the  primeval 


Man  and  God  21 

man  celebrated  the  feasts  of  new  and  full  moon,  with  convenial 
recreation  or  some  religious  ceremony. 

But  let  us  hug  the  shore  and  mark  the  foot  prints  of  the 
biped  struggling  upward.  Now  he  numbers,  counts  the  even- 
ings, first  from  new  moon  up  to  full  moon,  then  from  full 
moon  down  to  no  moon,  when  the  silvery  orb  of  night  was 
buried  in  the  burning  rays  of  Saturn,  only  one  of  day.  Yet 
the  numbers  were  fatiguing;  few  their  import  grasped  or  tried 
to.  A  heap  of  shells  was  all  that  was  seen  by  the  naked  herd 
of  thick  skulls  grinning  at  the  first  magician,  seer,  or  prophet 
that  the  world  knew.  But  what  meaning  have  these  shells 
now?  Let  him  try  to  solve  the  problem.  First  he  numbers 
all  his  fingers,  then  his  toes  are  fumbled  over,  yet  the  heap 
is  not  all  numbered.  He  knows  no  other  means  of  counting, 
but  he  must  the  knot  unravel  or  leave  the  mystery  unsolved. 
At  last  a  comrade  sitting  by  him  looking  at  the  shells  un- 
counted, thinks  about  his  eyes  and  ears  and  his  nose,  all  things 
useful,  two  ears,  two  eyes,  two  nostrils  and  his  mouth,  and 
with  finger  pointing  at  them  tells  the  seer  to  observe,  who 
in  joyful  mood  now  counts  them,  thus  the  nights  were  all 
numbered  that  the  moon  on  earth  was  seen,  and  as  the  sun 
no  favor  granted  its  time  was  reckoned  not  at  all.  But  three 
nights  were  passing  while  in  gloomy  darkness  the  stars  alone 
were  seen,  but  these  little  twinkling  lights  helped  the  plastic 
eye.  They  had  seen  with  sorrow  the  shrunken  form  of  the 
moon  departing  from  their  view,  and  not  appearing  again  till 
the  third  night  after  its  disappearance.  Thus  their  god  did 
die  and  rose  again  the  third  night  after  its  departure. 

This  is  foundation  for  the  story  that  a  god  once  died  and 
arose  to  life  again  the  third  night  after  he  was  buried.  The 
feast  of  new  moon  celebrated  throughout  the  ancient  world  that 
event,  until  changes  that  will  be  related  here  destroyed  the 
memory  of  the  cause  assigned  for  man's  first  good  and  kindly 
god  or  sky  mother.  There  was  an  awe-inspiring  phenomenon 
which  frequently  occurred  that  filled  their  minds  with  terror 
and  dismay.  Isolated  as  these  moon  worshippers  were  from 
much  of  the  world,  with  a  desert  of  water  in  front  of  them, 
and  in  the  distance  behind  them,  the  dark  towering  forests 
from  whence  the  roar  and  cry  of  beasts  of  prey  oft  reached  their 
ears,  with  whom  they  had  not  learned  to  cope,  who  can  con- 


22  Modernism 

ceive  or  who  can  understand,  even  faintly  the  wild  dismay 
that  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  caused  to  the  early  human  inhabi- 
tants of  the  earth?  Not  having  a  particle  of  knowledge  of 
cause,  nor  the  least  conception  of  the  stability  of  anything  in 
the  universe;  seeing  death  and  destruction  overtake  everything 
about  them;  seeing  their  companions  killed  by  the  tooth  of 
reptiles  or  dying  from  exposure  or  from  the  effect  of  food  or 
habit,  they  were  impressed  with  the  idea  that  everything  they 
loved  or  that  ministered  to  their  happiness  was  liable  to  be 
annihilated  any  moment.  When  the  shadow  of  the  earth  en- 
veloped a  large  part  of  the  heavens  in  smoky  darkness,  and 
from  the  murky  background  as  a  huge  monster  with  open  jaws, 
it  stuck  in  its  head  and  seized  the  edge  of  the  moon  and 
gradually  swallowed  it,  their  hearts  were  rent  with  anguish 
for  the  fate  of  their  sky  mother  or  ma,  but  when  that  hor- 
rible apparition  disgorged  the  unwholesome  morsel,  and  the 
moon  shone  forth  in  all  its  accustomed  beauty,  no  power  of 
human  expression  can  paint  the  pranks  of  joy  and  thankful- 
ness exhibited. 

Thus  the  moon  appeared  to  perform  all  those  offices  which 
primitive  man  thought  of  greatest  value  to  him.  It  was  his 
lamp  of  heaven  whose  light  suited  best  the  structure  of  his  eye, 
in  its  then  plastic  state.  It  swelled  the  surging  breakers  which 
dashed  the  luscious  fish  on  the  sandy  beach.  It  was  also  his 
clock  and  storm  signal.  It  was  the  oracle  that  proclaimed  his 
feasts  and  fasts,  and  that  taught  him  first  to  mark  a  course 
through  the  starry  firmament.  Was  it  not  natural,  therefore, 
that  he  should  on  the  moon  bestow  attributes  divine  and  the 
grateful  homage  due  a  loving  mother?  Although  the  progress 
of  the  man  who  lived  at  the  seashore  and  no  father  knew  was 
slow;  yet  wherever  propitious  circumstances  prevailed,  it  was, 
no  doubt  continual.  But  the  time  finally  came  when  not  only 
the  seashores,  but  the  banks  of  all  large  rivers  that  flowed  into 
the  seas,  had  felt  the  tread  of  the  human  foot.  We  will  not 
discuss  any  of  the  several  theories  of  eminent  philosophers, 
regarding  the  cause  that  produced  the  atmospheric  disturb- 
ance which  resulted  in  covering  more  than  half  of  both  hemi- 
spheres with  a  moving  sea  of  ice.  As  we  recognize  no  teacher 
of  science  infallible,  we  must  be  allowed  the  privilege  of  hold- 
ing to  the  views  already  advanced,  that  a  comet's  influence 


Man  and  God  23 

produced  the  glacial  periods.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  long  before 
the  ice  age  began,  it  found  the  simple  growing  fisherman  and 
hunter  on  the  shores  near  a  northern  sea. 

As  self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature  he  gradually 
began  his  march  toward  the  equator.  All  those  in  Europe 
pierced  the  forests  and  began  to  battle  for  their  lives  against 
nature,  beasts  of  prey  and  every  other  obstacle  that  lay  in  their 
path.  Many  fell  by  the  wayside  and  were  devoured  body  and 
bones.  A  few  preserved  their  lives  for  a  time  in  caves.  As 
they  fell  back  along  the  banks  of  rivers  and  at  the  base  of 
mountains,  they  finally  found  themselves  among  herds  of  peace- 
ful cattle.  Slowly  pushing  to  the  south,  as  the  snow  and  ice 
advanced  they  covered  their  bodies  with  the  warm  hides  of 
those  animals,  and  by  building  huts  for  shelter  during  the 
inclement  season  to  hide  them  from  the  rigorous  blasts  of  rain 
and  snow,  and  the  piercing  air,  they  finally  emerged  from  the 
dreariness  of  the  north,  having  for  their  companions  a  number 
of  these  useful  herbivorous  animals,  and  so  changed  in  personal 
appearance,  mode  of  living,  habits  and  physical  constitution, 
that  their  ancestral  race  features  were  almost  obliterated.*  They 
\vere  now  shepherds  and  had  been  compelled  by  force  of  cir- 
cumstances to  change  their  opinions  regarding  some  of  the 
phenomena  of  nature.  The  chaste  cold  moon  had  been  of  little 
value  to  them  as  a  god.  With  all  the  coquetry  of  a  silvery 
goddess,  she  lavished  her  most  benignant  smiles  on  their  great- 
est enemy,  the  bleak  and  monotonous  desert  of  snow.  So  losing 
faith  in  her  as  a  comforter  and  benefactor,  they  turned  their 
attention  to  the  sun,  with  whom  they  had  become  somewhat 
enamored,  and  began  to  watch  its  movement  with  the  eye  of 
a  natural  philosopher.  Through  its  yearly  course  they  saw  it 
wind  its  way  in  a  spiral  course  through  the  heavens,  from  its 
highest  point  of  ascension  in  the  north,  to  its  point  of  lowest 
descent  in  the  south,  and  they  noted  that  as  it  went  southward 
its  heat  moderated;  the  atmosphere  became  cooler  and  sharper, 
and  vegetation  gradually  yielded  up  its  color  and  strength, 
passing  from  life  to  death;  the  warm  showers  ceased,  being 
replaced  by  those  that  were  cold  and  disagreeable,  and  the 


*The  branch  of  the  human  family  that  passed  through  this  experience 
had  got  as  far  north  as  the  Baltic  Sea  by  way  of  the  Atlantic. 


24  Modernism 

earth  was  frequently  carpeted  at  night  and  morning  with  frozen 
crystals. 

Then  they  saw  the  starry  heavens  shut  out  from  their  view 
by  heavy  clouds  drifting  from  the  north,  the  space  around 
them  filled  with  commotion,  and  soon  the  earth  was  locked  in 
the  embrace  of  winter,  with  its  bridges  of  ice  and  banks  of 
snow.  Anxiously  and  solemnly  they  watched  the  sun  until  It 
had  reached  the  point  in  the  heavens  where  its  journey  to  the 
south  ended.  Then  they  saw  it  slowly  wind  its  way  back 
to  the  north  again  until  it  arrived  at  that  point  in  the  northern 
heavens  from  whence  it  began  to  decline.  They  noted  that 
as  the  sun  ascended  from  the  south,  its  rays  gradually  grew 
strong  and  kinder;  the  inhospitable  atmosphere,  with  heat 
slowly  became  tempered,  rain  and  mist  began  to  penetrate  the 
ice-bound  lakes  and  rivers,  the  snow-capped  mountains  and 
the  forests.  The  banks  of  rivers  and  softly  meandering  brooks 
were  overflowed  by  melting  ice.  The  earth  which  through  the 
dreary  winter  moons  had  been  petrified  by  frost,  received  the 
welcome  shower  and  gladsome  heat,  and  soon  bade  adieu  to 
the  shadow  of  departing  winter.  Spring  now  opened  with  its 
rippling  streams  and  ever-changing  breezes.  The  bosom  of  the 
earth  began  to  throb,  the  grass  pierced  the  casing  of  the  soil, 
and  the  fields  in  inimitable  green  were  dyed.  Trees,  bushes, 
and  shrubs  put  forth  their  buds  and  blossoms;  every  animal 
with  hoof  and  horn  careered  and  tossed  its  heels;  the  birds 
began  to  twitter,  the  frogs  croaked,  and  man  casting  off  his 
winter  garments  of  undressed  skins,  plunged  into  the  water 
or  rolled  in  the  ash  pile  to  purify  and  cleanse  his  body  from 
the  vermin  and  filth  that  had  accumulated  during  the  winter. 

Summer  then  rushed  in  with  the  hum  and  noise  of  bee  and 
locust,  the  chirp  of  cricket,  the  song  of  bird,  the  glare  of  sun, 
and  the  low  murmuring  bizz  of  shooting  vine,  stretching  twig 
and  opening  petal.  The  earth  now  seethed  and  the  air  was 
laden  with  the  motions,  vibrations  and  odor  of  vegetable  and 
animal  life.  Man  saw  and  noted  all  these  things.  He  saw 
that  the  ascending  sun  brought  life,  health,  joy  and  beauty  to 
everything  on  the  earth,  and  that  the  air  was  filled  with  fra- 
grance and  inspiration.  And  he  noted  also,  that  the  declining 
sun  brought  withering  death  to  vegetation,  the  absence  of  insect 
and  vocal  bird,  stillness  in  the  field  and  forest,  and  cold  and 


Man  and  God  25 

hunger  to  himself  and  his  animal  companions.  And  as  he 
saw  that  all  these  changes  on  earth  were  closely  connected 
with  the  apparent  movement  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens,  is  it 
any  wonder  that  the  sun  should  become  the  object  of  greatest 
interest  to  him  and  that  he  should  call  it  his  sky  father  and 
learn  to  worship  that  great  orb  of  light  as  the  supreme  one? 
It  is  said  in  another  part  of  this  book  that  the  moon  first  taught 
primitive  man  to  mark  a  course  through  the  stars  above. 
Eventually  he  must  have  given  names  to  the  several  groups 
of  stars  he  saw  while  watching  the  moon.  These  were  some 
time  after  called  constellations.  He  had  an  articulate  language. 
He  had  given  names  to  all  the  beasts  and  birds  that  were  his 
friends  and  enemies.  Therefore  in  naming  the  stars,  he  gave 
them  the  names  of  things  that  he  was  familiar  with.  Bears, 
goats,  dogs,  asses,  reptiles,  lions,  birds  and  fish.  The  heavens 
became  a  great  mirror  that  reflected  all  the  animal  forms  of 
earth  that  man  respected  or  abhorred. 


CHAPTER  III 
MAN  AND  THE  EARTH 

As  we  have  in  a  detached  manner  related  a  tale  that  has  not 
always  been  very  harmonious,  let  us  take  a  circumspective  view 
over  the  ground  we  have  attempted  to  cover,  observing  the 
law  of  sensual  impression  ourselves  as  a  guiding  light.  Whether 
atoms  of  all  substance  in  a  solid  state  and  indivisible  ether,  or 
matter  in  a  gaseous  state  and  ether,  were  used  in  the  con- 
struction and  operation  of  all  the  organized  bodies  in  our  solar 
system,  the  result  would  be  the  same  in  constructing  or  pro- 
ducing a  globe  such  as  the  earth  was  before  a  stratified  carpet 
had  been  laid  upon  its  solid  granite  floor.  Therefore  we  may 
conclude  that  when  all  the  substance  that  had  been  held  in  a 
gaseous  condition  in  the  atmosphere  through  the  fiery  heat 
radiated  from  the  molten  matter  of  the  globe  had  been  deposited 
as  slime  and  ashes  on  the  cooling  surface,  and  the  earth  had 
become  cool  enough  at  both  poles  to  permit  water  to  remain 
permanently  at  these  favorable  localities,  the  volume  of  water  as 
it  increased  in  size  took  on  a  circular  movement.  This  move- 
ment of  the  water  carried  the  ashes  and  heavy  liquids  that 
had  settled  at  the  bottom,  to  the  outside  of  the  pool.  Gradually 
a  little  embankment  was  formed  there.  In  this  manner  several 
small  ridges  were  formed  as  the  pool  increased  in  size,  and  as 
the  force  of  the  water  increased  all  of  the  inner  ridges  being 
soft  were  carried  to  the  outside.  Now  we  have  quite  a  strong 
ridge  of  heavy  material.  Some  part  of  this  ridge  is  not  as 
high  as  the  rest  of  it  and  the  water  overflows  at  this  point  and 
it  gradually  cuts  a  gap  through  the  ridge,  running  out  like  a 
little  river  first,  then  it  begins  to  spread  over  the  surface.  As 
the  volume  of  water  increases  in  the  pool,  in  going  through 
the  gap  in  the  ridge,  it  gradually  increases  the  size  of  the  gap. 
If  the  pool  is  five  hundred  miles  across  in  all  directions,  the 
ridge  would  be  over  fifteen  hundred  miles  in  circumference.  If 
26 


Man  and  the  Earth  27 

three  gaps  had  been  cut  through  the  ridge,  five  hundred  miles 
apart,  at  the  time  the  ridge  would  be  all  cut  away,  six  other 
ridges  starting  from  the  circular  ridge  would  be  formed,  three 
running  southeast  and  three  running  southwest,  forming  three 
triangle  shaped  seas,  the  base  of  each  opening  on  the  polar 
sea,  the  southern  points  at  the  south  of  the  Caspian,  at  the 
southern  end  of  Spain,  and  at  the  south  of  Mexico. 

In  the  southern  hemisphere  nearly  similar  conditions  pre- 
vailed. The  earth  rolled  on  through  space  accepting  every- 
thing that  came  to  it  without  a  word  of  compliment  or  reproof. 
Garments  it  received  of  many  colors  that  in  the  weaving  and 
making  each  new  garment,  ages  of  time  were  consumed.  When 
it  had  worn  out  the  first  garment,  two  very  simple  forms  of 
life,  one  vigorous  and  full  of  activity,  the  other  more  dignified, 
strutting  slowly  through  the  water,  remarked  to  his  compan- 
ion in  language  telepathic  that  "  the  world  must  now  be  finished 
as  no  higher  form  of  life  can  possibly  be  created  than  our- 
selves." The  stout  one  wandered  far  e'er  night  set  in,  and 
while  they  slept  the  bottom  of  the  sea  rose  up  and  morning 
found  the  proud  one  high  and  dry  on  land  where  parching 
sun  soon  baked  him  to  a  crust,  the  strong  one  floundering  in 
the  mud  where  some  water  lodged  fought  for  life  and  making 
of  his  fins  a  kind  of  legs  and  feet  survived.  It  was  very  hard 
at  first,  the  fat  fell  off  his  bones  but  meeting  others  of  his  kind 
amidst  the  mire  his  life  was  cheered  and  from  his  seed  many 
species  grew.  And  one  of  these  in  after  ages  with  jaws  and 
body  of  enormous  size  looking  over  the  land  and  in  the  water 
said  to  his  cousin  with  leather  wings,  in  telepathic  tongue, 
"  Who  can  stand  against  me  on  the  land  or  in  the  water?  For 
me  the  world  was  made  'tis  plain."  A  great  barrier  north  of  the 
shallow  lake  and  low  plain  on  and  in  which  he  sported,  trem- 
bled, the  earth  groaned,  and  the  barrier  sunk.  A  mighty  sea 
of  limy  water  covered  and  buried  him  forever.  The  one  with 
leather  wings  took  flight  and  rested  not  until  he  found  a  tree 
to  rest  upon.  Faint  and  over  weary  now  he  looked  around 
and  saw  some  of  his  kindred  who  had  learned  to  move  their 
bodies  over  the  slimy  earth  where  feet  were  useless  sinking 
into  the  mire. 

The  earth  now  changed  its  aspect,  and  the  one  with  leather 
wings  generated  many  broods  with  feathers  of  every  hue.  With 


28  Modernism 

insects  now  many  lands  were  filled  that  gained  dominion  of 
the  land  and  air.  The  leaf  and  bush  and  herb  were  gathered 
by  the  reaping  jaws  of  armies  as  numerous  as  the  separate 
grains  of  sand  at  any  sea  shore.  From  the  eternal  clatter  of 
their  jaws  and  feet  arose  a  noise,  a  dire  resounding  rasping 
sound.  But  through  some  natural  favors  a  few  lands  which 
had  been  separated  from  the  home  of  those  vile  pests  by  clime 
or  sea  permitted  forms  of  life  to  live  beyond  their  time  in 
nature's  growth  toward  a  high  development.  But  every  thing 
that  lived  and  had  not  natural  resisting  covering,  either  became 
pachyderms  or  fell  to  the  earth  from  the  ceaseless  stings  or 
puny  crashing  jaws  of  insects.  As  in  this  tiresome  time  there 
was  no  peace  for  those  with  tender  skin  upon  the  ground  be- 
neath the  glare  of  torrid  sun,  the  cooler  air  of  mountain  tops 
and  polar  zones  became  the  home  of  all  who  did  not  abide  in 
trees.  Of  these  the  anthropoid  apes  were  the  wisest  animals 
on  earth,  but  not  so  strong  as  those  now  living.  The  high- 
lands and  the  mountains  became  their  uncontested  empire,  but 
the  strife  for  food  and  territorial  dominion  drove  many  to  the 
sea  shore.  The  ape  was  the  most  imitative  animal  that  lived. 
The  action  of  one  animal  in  the  presence  of  another  is  one 
of  the  modes  of  language  by  which  an  observing  animal  is 
taught.  The  dog  who  is  not  particular  regarding  the  food  he 
eats  is  at  the  sea  shore  eating  dead  mollusks  and  he  smashes 
the  thin  shell  of  live  ones  and  separates  the  food  from  the 
the  shell.  The  hungry  ape  observes  the  act  and  imitates  the 
action.  The  taste  for  blood  he  had  not  acquired  and  the 
bloodless  luscious  meat  of  the  mollusk  soon  became  a  fascina- 
tion that  held  him  to  the  sea  shore  for  ages. 

All  the  seas  except  the  polar  seas,  contained  a  large  amount 
of  lime.  The  atmosphere  being  hot  and  the  seas  not  cold, 
the  apes  from  wading  into  the  water  as  the  waves  dashed  the 
mollusks  on  the  shore  soon  began  to  feel  the  luxury  of  the 
lower  temperature  of  the  water,  and  from  wading  began  to 
bathe  and  spend  a  large  amount  of  time  in  the  water.  At 
that  time  the  ape  was  a  nocturnal  animal.  The  fierceness  of 
the  sun's  rays  was  too  blinding  for  him  to  see  advantageously, 
so  after  it  had  set  in  the  west  and  until  it  arose  in  the  morning 
he  was  full  of  life  and  activity.  Although  the  feeble  light  of  the 
stars  and  planets  aided  him  in  a  very  small  degree,  complete 


Man  and  the  Earth  29 

darkness  caused  them  to  huddle  together  in  silence.  That  was 
the  time  that  their  invisible  foes  were  most  powerful.  But 
the  moment  the  moon  arose  the  feeling  of  security  returned, 
and  they  began  to  feed.  The  period  of  its  presence  each  night 
was  a  period  of  unalloyed  delight.  The  homes  of  the  four 
families  of  the  anthropoid  apes  were  near  the  equator.  The 
gibbon  and  orang  in  southeastern  Asia,  the  chimpanzee  and 
gorilla  lived  on  the  western  side  of  Africa. 

The  four  families  of  the  anthropoid  apes  had  the  same  ex- 
perience. The  constant  bathing  in  the  sea  of  lime  water 
eventually  destroyed  the  reproductive  power  of  the  outer  skin 
to  sustain  the  growth  of  hair,  so  these  apes  and  all  other  animals 
that  bathed  in  the  lime  water  seas,  estuaries  and  lakes  lost  the 
power  of  growing  hair  on  their  bodies  and  the  skin  which  in 
the  natural  state  had  been  soft  assumed  the  appearance  of  shells 
or  scales.  The  offsprings  of  the  dogs  that  were  the  first  com- 
panions of  primitive  man  on  the  sea  shore  are  hairless.  A 
few  of  them  are  still  alive  in  India  and  Egypt.* 

The  chimpanzee  on  the  western  shore  of  Africa  wandered 
south  around  the  continent  and  north  as  far  as  Zanzibar.  The 
gorilla  going  last  into  the  water  north  of  the  home  of  the 
chimpanzee  wandered  up  and  down  not  far  from  his  forest 
home.  Every  river  that  stopped  the  passage  of  the  chimpanzee, 
its  beach  was  tramped  to  find  a  place  to  cross.  His  arms  were 
shortened  by  disuse  and  holding  on  them  against  his  breast 
many  mollusks.  All  ape  men  did  the  same.  The  orang  near 
the  equator  had  two  distinct  families,  one  wandered  south  to 
Australia,  which  was  unseparated  from  Asia.  The  other  family 
followed  the  Pacific  north,  but  the  branch  of  the  family  that 
wandered  south  clung  to  their  native  beach.  The  fourth  ape 
the  gibbon — of  these  there  were  two  families  of  many  shades 
of  skin.  They  were  the  most  agile  and  intelligent  of  all  the 
apes.  They  took  to  the  beach  the  first  and  had  spread  on  the 
beach  of  India  from  its  eastern  boundary.  They  used  both 
sea  and  land  for  a  long  time.  Their  arms  were  not  so  long 
as  are  the  gibbons  now.  They  also  had  the  best  hands  and 
feet  to  apply  to  any  kind  of  useful  service.  Although  the 

*If  this  suggestion  proves  incorrect,  we  will  have  to  fall  back  on  the 
theory  that  it  was  an  adaptation  against  disease;  such  as  dermatitis  ex- 
foliativa  or  other  skin  disease. 


30  Modernism 

weakest  of  all  the  primates,  they  were  naturally  the  best  qualified 
to  walk  erect  and  develop  physically  and  mentally.  And  by 
not  giving  up  the  land  entirely  they  continued  for  a  time  to 
live  on  a  mixed  diet  when  handy. 

It  was  a  long  time  before  any  pedestrian  advancement  began 
other  than  such  straggling  adventures  as  the  most  fearless  and 
independent,  who  always  court  danger  rather  than  be  in  the 
midst  of  constraining  communities.  Wherever  a  flock,  a  herd, 
or  a  group  of  any  kind  of  beasts  or  birds  exist,  they  are  under 
constraining  influence  of  some  kind.  The  law  of  restraint  that 
all  birds  and  beasts  learn  to  obey  under  penalty  of  punish- 
ment, is  the  decalog  that  experience  has  taught  all  the  tribes 
of  the  earth.  In  Africa  and  Asia  near  the  equator,  where  these 
bipeds  were  near  the  sea  side,  during  the  nighttime  when  their 
stomachs  were  filled  with  shell  fish,  they  sat  in  the  sand  while 
the  falling  dew  bathed  and  cooled  their  bodies.  When  the 
eastern  sky  was  painted  red  they  sought  the  shades  of  the 
bushes  and  covered  their  bodies  with  sand  and  very  quickly 
went  to  sleep.  When  the  sun  was  sinking  in  the  west  the  dog 
who  taught  the  hairy  biped  the  luxury  of  a  mollusk  diet,  sees 
the  crescent  moon  and  barks.  He  barks  and  barks  or  bays 
the  moon.  The  bipeds  are  now  aroused.  They  see  the  dog 
looking  at  the  moon,  and  still  continues  barking.  They  look 
at  the  dog  and  then  at  the  moon  and  utter  inarticulate  groans, 
and  point  at  the  dog  and  the  moon.  Night  after  night  the 
same  scene  occurs.  They  question  each  other  with  nods  and 
groans  and  gestures.  The  question  they  ask  is  this:  Why  is 
the  bow  wow  bow  wowing  the  light  maker? 

All  animals  have  the  faculty  of  speech  or  language  and  of 
imitation  in  a  greater  or  lesser  degree.  The  construction  of 
the  brain  wrhere  imitation  and  vocal  sense  are  poor  limit  the 
power  of  speech.  The  young  of  every  species  imitate  their 
parents.  A  young  robin  taken  from  the  nest  and  fed  by  hand 
can  be  taught  to  whistle  short  tunes.  The  parrot  can  imitate 
any  sound  it  hears.  Man's  first  language  was  an  attempt  to 
imitate  the  language  of  the  birds  and  beasts  of  his  environ- 
ment. He  named  them  according  to  the  sounds  they  uttered. 
When  they  made  no  sounds  some  peculiarity  of  their  form  was 
gestured.  The  gesture  is  the  parent  of  sign  language,  writing 
and  printing.  By  it  the  actions  of  people  who  lived  many 


Man  and  the  Earth  3 1 

thousand  years  ago  can  be  understood.  Their  deeds  live  in 
the  gestures  imprinted  on  clay,  stone  or  short-lived  parchment 
which  the  writers  wished  might  be  transcribed.  Their  atten- 
tion now  being  called  by  the  dog  to  the  moon,  the  other  inhabi- 
tants of  the  sky,  as  seen  by  night  were  gradually  discovered. 
Not  the  attention  of  all,  only  the  attention  of  the  most  observ- 
ing and  the  most  intelligent.  The  herd  were  taught  to  see  and 
understand  what  the  greatest  saw  and  understood. 

When  the  island  of  Ceylon  was  a  part  of  the  mainland  of 
India,  the  branch  of  the  gibbon  family  that  had  made  their 
abode  there  for  a  long  time,  through  the  adventures  of  some 
of  them  who  had  traveled  quite  a  distance  west  and  returned 
on  several  occasions  to  a  place  where  there  was  always  a  great 
abundance  of  shell  fish,  this  place  became  a  sort  of  news  depot 
or  center  of  information.  The  worship  of  the  moon  became 
a  systemized  religion  there.  It  was  thought  that  the  moon 
was  born  like  human  bipeds  a  little  thing  at  first,  and  lived 
to  be  full  grown  at  full  moon,  and  then  began  to  grow  old  and 
finally  was  lost  or  died  and  was  reborn  again.  That  it  lived 
as  many  night  as  one  of  them  had  fingers,  toes,  mouth,  ears, 
eyes  and  nostrils.  But  as  they  had  discovered  a  cave  that  had 
an  opening  at  both  ends  where  a  person  could  go  in  one  end 
and  out  of  the  other.  This  settled  the  problem  as  to  where 
the  moon  went  when  they  could  no  longer  see  it.  It  went  into 
a  cave  in  the  sky  and  came  out  of  the  other  end  when  it  was 
reborn.  Being  a  person,  their  sky  Ma,  it  became  an  exemplar 
whose  life  or  path  should  be  followed.  So  they  made  it  a  part 
of  their  religion  to  be  reborn  as  their  sky  Ma  was.  When  they 
did  not  have  a  cave  of  the  natural  kind  they  made  a  little 
one  just  large  enough  for  a  person  to  go  through.  This  was 
a  necessary  religious  rite.  On  all  their  travels  they  always 
used  caves  wherever  they  could  find  them.  As  their  god 
was  born  and  died  in  a  cave  they  tried  to  follow  her  example. 

It  had  taken  an  age  of  mental  development  to  arrive  at  this 
conception  of  a  religious  system.  The  dog  first  called  their 
attention  to  the  moon  as  something  to  look  at.  It  was  the 
changeful  character  of  the  moon  that  attracted  the  dog's  atten- 
tion. The  dog  is  a  very  friendly  and  intelligent  animal.  He 
never  could  get  on  friendly  terms  with  any  one  who  would 
go  through  so  many  changes  in  his  appearance.  So  he  tried 


3  2  Modernism 

to  drive  the  moon  out  of  the  sky  by  barking  at  it.  But  these 
changes  of  the  phases  of  the  moon  made  the  moon  so  different 
from  everything  else  in  the  sky  to  man  that  it  became  a  matter 
to  think  about  and  also  to  talk  about.  And  when  they  had 
come  to  regard  it  as  a  person  who  ruled  the  night,  they  gave 
it  the  credit  of  causing  the  dew  to  fall  on  their  warm  bodies, 
and  to  make  the  nights  cool;  to  give  them  light  and  plenty  of 
shell  fish,  thus  performing  several  offices  that  were  very  useful 
to  them.  They  had  observed  that  the  mother  performs  very 
useful  offices  for  the  child.  She  feeds  it,  watches  it  and  pro- 
tects it.  She  defends  it  against  everybody  and  everything. 
She  caresses  it  and  plays  with  it.  She  manifests  great  kindness 
to  it  on  all  occasions,  and  expresses  emotions  of  love  for  it 
above  all  things  else  on  the  sea  beach.  These  manifestations 
of  usefulness  on  the  part  of  the  mother  to  her  child  in  con- 
tradistinction to  the  exhibition  of  unalloyed  greed  and  selfish- 
ness, constituted  her  an  object  of  devotion.  And  as  the  moon 
was  the  only  natural  object  that  compared  favorably  with  the 
mother,  it  was  called  the  sky  Ma;  the  good  demon. 

The  idea  of  goodness  as  understood  by  all  of  our  primitive 
ancestors,  was  first  suggested  by  discovering  something  that 
was  useful  to  them  or  that  helped  them.  When  the  sun  arose 
every  object  in  the  sky  was  blotted  out,  and  its  rays  being  too 
strong  for  them  to  see  or  bear  the  heat,  it  seemed  to  them 
that  it  was  useless  although  most  powerful,  so  they  called  it 
a  bad  demon.  Originally  the  term  demon  embraced  every- 
thing that  has  since  been  denominated  spirits,  deities  and  gods. 
Some  were  good,  others  were  bad,  according  to  their  supposed 
usefulness  or  uselessness.  The  good  ones  were  loved;  and 
exhibition  of  their  love  was  displayed  in  some  manner.  The 
bad  ones  were  hated  but  feared,  and  propitiated  to  try  to  make 
them  good  or  merciful.  The  shadow  of  the  earth  as  seen  at 
an  eclipse  of  the  moon  was  the  most  abhorred  demon  of  the 
sky.  The  comet  appearing  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  was  called 
Python  after  the  largest  reptile  known  to  man.  All  these  had 
a  place  in  man's  most  ancient  system  of  theology.  The  moon 
was  the  good  demon,  most  of  the  others  were  bad.  This  theo- 
logical system  spread  along  the  sea  shores  and  up  some  of 
the  rivers.  Where  it  was  unknown  among  the  people,  they 
knew  nothing  of  celestial  theology. 


Man  and  the  Earth  33 

The  father  being  unknown  for  a  long  time,  and  being  unrecog- 
nized by  either  mother  or  child  as  a  blood  relation,  he 
occupied  no  position  of  honor  or  respect  in  that  most  primitive 
society.  This  family  of  the-  offsprings  of  the  gibbon  spread 
along  the  sea  coast  from  the  mouth  of  the  river  Ganges  to  the 
Indus  where  they  found  it  necessary  to  tramp  up  quite  a  dis- 
tance to  find  a  place  to  cross  on  rafts.  Returning  on  the  other 
side  they  continued  to  wander  along  the  beach  until  after 
many  years  the  offsprings  of  those  who  had  elaborated  the  simple 
recognization  of  the  moon  as  a  benevolent  person,  had  arrived 
on  the  Mediterranean  near  the  mouth  of  the  Nile.  This  was 
the  first  wave  of  the  gibbon  family.  A  large  part  of  the  second 
wave  of  the  gibbons  advanced  from  'the  Indus,  when  they  had 
come  to  the  Red  sea  which  was  at  that  time  an  inland  sea, 
stretching  from  the  base  of  the  Lebanon  mountains  to  the 
straits  of  Babelmandeb,  which  were  closed.  Here  the  first 
wave  of  the  gibbons  crossed  to  the  western  side  of  the  Red 
sea,  but  the  second  wave  wandered  along  the  eastern  side  of 
the  sea  toward  the  north.  The  near  relatives  of  the  founders 
of  moon  worship  as  a  system,  that  were  on  the  east  side  of  the 
river  Indus,  when  they  advanced  along  the  river  afterwards 
they  had  to  contend  with  beasts  and  reptiles  of  all  descrip- 
tion. Here  was  a  nation  of  the  offsprings  of  the  gibbon, 
stretching  from  Ceylon  along  the  sea  shores  to  both  sides  of 
the  Red  sea.  The  first  or  advance  guard  had  reached  the  Medi- 
terranean, the  second  had  reached  as  far  north  as  Mecca.  When 
the  last  body  of  the  gibbon  moved  to  the  Indus  they  left 
behind  a  small  branch  of  the  people  who  were  too  much  at- 
tached to  their  homes  to  leave  it.  The  orang  family  occupied 
all  the  equatorial  land  comprised  now  in  the  East  Indian  islands, 
the  north  of  Australia  and  what  has  been  lately  called  Lemuria, 
which  connected  with  the  south  of  South  America.  They  also 
occupied  the  sea  shore  of  all  lands  east  of  India  and  south  of 
Burma  to  its  eastern  boundary,  and  the  shore  of  the  Pacific 
up  to  the  tropic  of  Cancer. 

The  theological  system  that  the  gibbons  were  the  founders 
of,  continued  to  be  their  guide  in  religious  matters.  Incidents 
that  occurred  from  time  to  time,  suggested  certain  maxims  and 
customs  that  had  all  the  force  of  law.  When  a  custom  had 
been  thoroughly  grafted  on  their  habits,  that  custom  became 


34  Modernism 

so  deeply  rooted  that  it  produced  a  natural  desire  to  observe 
it.  They  had  no  knowledge  of  any  natural  phenomenon,  and 
therefore  they  were  helpless  slaves  to  all  kinds  of  superstitious 
notions.  As  the  rising  sun  immediately  ended  the  night  no 
matter  in  what  part  of  the  sky  the  moon  was,  this  intensified 
their  hatred  of  the  sun  and  caused  them  to  think  that  the  sun 
swallowed  the  host  of  heaven  or  sky  children.  From  which 
idea,  the  oldest  time  god  Saturn,  was  said  to  have  devoured 
his  children  as  tyrant  of  the  sky.  Among  some  of  the  incidents 
that  had  occurred  to  these  bipeds  as  they  wandered  along,  when 
the  moon  was  casting  its  silvery  beams  on  the  earth,  they  saw 
their  shadows.  These  shadows  were  for  a  long  time  a  mystery, 
but  the  medicine  women  or  men  who  were  the  infallible  oracles 
and  possessors  of  all  knowledge  and  wisdom,  declared  that 
everything  had  a  double  nature.  That  the  material  nature  could 
be  seen  at  all  times  if  it  were  not  too  dark,  but  that  the  other 
immaterial  nature  could  only  be  seen  when  the  moon  was  shin- 
ing. This  immaterial  nature  was  called  the  shade.*  When  one 
was  asleep,  it  was  only  the  flesh  and  bones  that  slept,  as  the 
shade  never  slept.  No  sooner  had  the  medicine  man  decided 
one  question  than  he  was  called  upon  to  decide  another.  Some 
of  the  more  important  bipeds  had  been  dreaming.  Some  of 
their  dreams  were  good  and  pleasurable  and  some  of  them  were 
neither.  So  the  medicine  man  was  requested  to  give  his  opinion 
regarding  the  import  and  cause  of  dreams. 

At  that  time  they  had  invented  some  things  like  spears  to 
kill  fish  and  other  animals  that  lived  in  and  near  the  sea  side. 
The  act  of  killing  these  animals  was  exciting,  and  in  time  a 
natural  desire  was  developed  in  them  to  kill  these  fish  and 
other  animals  to  eat.  So  these  people  frequently  dreamed  that 
they  were  killing  these  fish  while  they  were  asleep  often  at  some 
place  where  there  was  plenty  of  them.  The  medicine  man's 
decision  was  that  the  man's  shade  had  carried  him  to  the  place 
he  dreamed  of  and  that  he  had  really  been  killing  fish  while 
he  was  asleep.  So  one  of  them  who  thought  he  was  of  so 
much  importance  that  his  shade  might  carry  him  to  some  of 
the  places  he  dreamed  of  when  he  had  taken  his  last  sleep,  kept 
his  spear  always  by  him  when  he  laid  down  to  sleep,  and 

*The  human  soul  developed 'from  this  idea. 


Man  and  the  Earth  35 

ordered  his  friends  if  he  slept  too  long  to  lay  his  spear  along 
side  of  him  when  they  covered  him  up  with  sand.  Now  this 
example  was  followed  soon  by  every  one  and  finally  became 
a  religious  custom.  The  orang  people  had  imbibed  some  of 
the  theological  customs  and  ideas  of  the  gibbons.  All  the 
ape  men  in  Asia  and  Africa  had  a  great  regard  for  the  moon 
as  a  benevolent  person.  The  gorilla  people  did  not  stay  long 
on  the  sea  shore;  if  they  had  been  walking  in  the  sand  for  a 
long  time,  the  walking  would  have  made  calves  on  their  legs.* 
The  necessity  of  defending  themselves  from  the  attacks  of 
amphibious  animals  and  smashing  the  shells  of  shell  fish,  gradu- 
ally put  into  their  hands  stone  hammers,  knives  and  spears. 
Where  they  found  caves  they  used  them,  where  there  were  none 
they  burrowed  into  the  side  of  a  hill  or  built  up  stone  huts 
like  bee  hives. 

Gradually  their  eyes  had  become  more  and  more  accustomed 
to  the  light  of  the  sun.  They  were  now  using  many  hours  of 
the  morning  and  late  afternoons,  and  sleeping  through  the  heat 
of  the  day  and  part  of  the  night.  Whatever  they  saw  other 
animals  eat  they  did  the  same.  They  followed  nearly  all  ex- 
amples set  by  other  animals  as  far  as  they  could  or  as  far  as 
they  thought  it  was  useful.  Now  let  us  see  where  the  primi- 
tive races  are  scattered.  The  gorilla  family  is  on  the  west 
side  of  Africa  not  very  far  from  its  original  home.  The  chim- 
panzee family  is  scattered  along  the  sea  shore  mostly  on  the 
west  side  of  Africa  up  to  Zanzibar.  The  orang  family  is  south 
of  Burma  to  Australia,  and  north  on  the  Pacific  side  to  the 
south  of  China.  And  the  gibbon  family  is  scattered  along  the 
sea  shore  from  Ceylon  to  the  Red  sea,  and  above  the  mouth 
of  the  river  Indus.  While  this  state  of  things  had  been  going 
on  in  Asia  and  Africa;  snow  had  been  falling  at  both  the  poles 
and  the  ice  had  formed  on  the  fresh  water  sea  at  the  north  pole. 
There  were  only  a  few  small  deep  seas  at  that  time;  the  whole 
body  of  land  was  low  with  extensive  depressions  containing 
salt  lime  water,  and  fresh  water.  The  orbit  of  the  earth  was 
circular,  and  there  was  no  bending  of  the  earth's  axis.  The 
sun's  rays  fell  vertically  all  the  year  on  a  small  band  directly 

*  The  difference  that  exists  in  the  construction  of  the  skull  or  brain 
and  arms  of  the  four  families  of  our  present  apes  has  been  brought 
about  mainly  through  the  fight  for  life. 


36  Modernism 

on  the  equator.  The  seas  and  shallow  water  beds  absorbed  the 
sun's  rays  which  caused  great  evaporation  and  cloudy  weather 
on  a  narrow  belt  of  the  earth.  If  there  had  been  greater 
absorption  of  the  sun's  rays  in  the  water  at  any  past  time  in 
the  earth's  history  than  there  is  at  the  present  time,  the  earth 
must  have  moved  in  an  orbit  nearer  to  the  sun  at  that  time 
than  it  does  now. 

As  the  sun's  rays  are  absorbed  to  a  much  greater  extent 
when  the  southern  hemisphere  faces  it  during  our  winter  at  the 
north,  the  earth  draws  nearer  to  the  sun  than  when  our  north- 
ern hemisphere  with  its  much  larger  extent  of  land  and  smaller 
volume  of  water  faces  it.  This  ought  to  be  conclusive  proof 
that  the  distribution  of  water  geographically,  is  one  of  the  main 
factors  causing  the  bending  of  the  axis  of  the  several  planets 
and  the  eccentricity  of  their  orbits.  The  sun  being  a  great 
electric  battery,  although  its  light  is  scattered  through  space 
far  beyond  the  most  distant  of  our  planets,  its  imperceptible 
substance  is  mainly  directed  to  the  planets  that  are  continually 
moving  around  it;  hence  the  side  of  the  earth  facing  the  sun 
becomes  the  positive  pole  of  the  earth,  and  the  force  in  opera- 
tion has  a  tendency  to  push  the  earth  away  from  the  sun, 
but  the  substance  received  from  the  sun  is  continually  carried 
to  the  dark  and  cooler  side  of  the  earth  which  becomes  the 
negative  pole,  and  the  attractive  force  in  operation  on  the  dark 
side  of  the  earth  acts  against  the  repelling  force  of  the  sun's 
rays  poured  upon  the  bright  side  with  the  same  power  keeping 
the  earth  in  its  regular  course  from  year  to  year  without  much 
deviation. 

But  let  us  get  a  geographical  view  of  the  earth  as  it  looked 
at  the  time  we  left  our  apish  ancestors  in  Asia,  Australia, 
Africa  and  elsewhere,  wandering  along  the  sea  shores  and  up 
and  down  rivers  near  the  mouths  of  rivers.  In  some  places 
where  the  supply  of  shell  fish  was  very  great,  large  bodies 
of  the  ancient  people  were  there  collected.  North  America  and 
Europe  were  joined  from  Newfoundland  to  the  British  Islands. 
South  America  and  Africa  were  joined  from  Brazil  to  Morocco. 
The  south  of  Chili  was  joined  to  what  is  called  Lemuria. 
Alaska  from  the  Aleutian  Islands  to  the  Polar  sea  was  joined 
to  northern  Asia.  South  America  and  Australia  extended  to 
the  Antarctic  sea.  Africa  extended  to  fifty  degrees  south  lati- 


Man  and  the  Earth  37 

tude.  Islands  were  in  all  the  seas.  A  few  lakes  existed  on 
each  of  the  continents.  All  the  seas,  lakes,  and  rivers  were 
filled  with  fish,  lobsters,  clams,  oysters  and  other  Crustacea  and 
bivalve  animals,  amphibian  and  reptilian  life.  Beasts  of  many 
kinds  roamed  through  the  forests  and  nipped  the  grass  and 
brushes.  Feathered  birds  of  every  hue,  walked  the  sand  and 
flew  above  the  earth  from  tree  to  tree.  Insects  filled  the  land 
and  air  where  torrid  heat  prevailed.  These  pestiferous  midgets 
drove  all  tender  skinned  animals  to  coldest  parts.  In  this  region 
where  animals  could  live  and  grow  in  strength  and  size,  on 
land  and  in  the  water,  there  browsed  the  gigantic  mammoth. 
One  of  these  whose  strength  could  not  be  estimated,  looking 
about  him  when  his  stomach  had  been  filled  with  a  great  branch 
of  a  tree,  that  had  been  cut  into  small  pieces  with  his  huge 
ivory  teeth,  said  to  one  of  his  kindred  in  language  that  they 
alone  understood  "  We  are  the  greatest  of  all  animals  on  earth 
in  strength  and  loftiness  of  proportion.  Therefore  it  is  evident 
that  we  are  the  end  for  which  the  world  was  made.  The  earth 
is  surely  finished  now  and  when  it  grows  cooler  on  the  centre 
of  the  globe  we  will  own  it  all."  A  comet  passing  near  whose 
air  was  mostly  chlorine  gas  dipped  the  end  of  its  tail  into  the 
Polar  sea.  The  sea  and  air  were  filled  with  the  noxious  vapor, 
and  the  vaunting  mammoth  and  all  the  other  breathing  beasts 
upon  the  land  who  inhaled  the  deadly  fume  were  stricken  dead.* 
The  comet's  fiery  head  now  strikes  the  moon  and  its  tail  is 
swung  around  to  trail  the  other  pole  of  the  earth.  Its  seething 
head  boils  all  the  water  on  the  moon  to  steam  and  this  is 
poured  down  upon  the  earth  in  rain.  The  rain  in  mighty  tor- 
rents sweeps  around  the  southern  hemisphere  from  west  to 
east,  tearing  and  smashing  the  land  to  tatters.  The  atmosphere 
of  the  comet  reaching  the  atmosphere  of  the  earth  was  acting 
as  a  funnel  through  which  all  the  water  and  movable  sub- 
stance on  the  moon  were  coming  to  the  earth.  In  every  part 
of  the  heavens  the  lightning  moved  in  continual  waves  and  the 
thunder  roared  more  dreadful  than  a  fierce  and  ceaseless  battle 
of  artillery.  While  all  the  volcanoes  on  the  earth  belched  forth 
liquid  fire  and  smoke;  the  moon  was  enveloped  in  a  mass  of 


*  The  idea  that  the  bodies  of  these  and  other  animals  that  are  found 
frozen  in  the  northern  sea  were  overwhelmed  while  living  is  simply  non- 
sehse.  They  were  killed  by  the  poisoned  atmosphere  and  then  frozen. 


3  8  Modernism 

steam  and  flame  that  blotted  out  the  light  of  the  sun  through 
dense  and  massive  clouds  for  many  days  and  nights.  And  the 
water  like  a  cataract  besom  swept  and  sunk  all  the  deeper  seas 
and  lakes  and  as  they  sunk  the  plastic  yielding  rocks  of  high 
and  northern  lands  were  pushed  above  the  waves,  but  the 
horrid  vampire  hung  to  the  failing  moon  until  it  sucked  all  the 
movable  substance  of  water,  sand  and  precious  gems  off  the 
burning  body  of  our  beautiful  satellite  and  hurled  them  down 
on  the  deluged  earth.  When  the  meteoric  skeleton  of  the 
comet  stole  away  as  an  unseen  ghost,  the  moon's  face  was 
burnt  as  dry  as  gasless  coke.  Much  life  of  every  kind  upon 
the  earth  had  been  destroyed.  The  great  continent  of  Australia 
had  suffered  most;  save  on  its  northern  end  no  animal  life 
had  been  preserved.  Much  of  its  surface  had  been  scooped 
up  by  rushing  waves  and  hurled  to  other  parts  of  the  globe. 
The  gradual  encroachment  of  the  rising  tide  upon  the  land 
gave  fitting  chance  to  all  with  knowing  sense  to  escape  to 
highest  grounds.  Much  life  was  thus  preserved.  The  rising 
land  above  the  sinking  wave,  was  counterpoised  in  weight  by 
the  heavy  seas.  The  land  which  had  been  tenanted  by  the 
privemal  man  was  favored  much,  but  on  the  far  outstretching 
beach  too  distant  from  the  mountain  range  or  elevated  lands, 
the  loss  of  life  was  great.  But  this  deluge  with  all  the  phe- 
nomena celestial  and  terrestrial  that  accompanied  it  was  ob- 
served by  man  in  his  low  estate.  The  awfulness  of  its  dimensions 
and  the  terribleness  of  its  character  made  such  an  indelible 
impression  on  the  infantile  brain  of  the  human  inhabitants  of 
the  earth,  that  they  transmitted  the  observation  as  a  blood 
inheritance  to  their  posterity.  In  time  several  local  floods 
destroyed  some  life  and  did  great  damage  on  the  parts  affected. 
It  is  questionable  if  a  human  being  exists  to-day  whose  men- 
tality is  not  defective  who  could  behold  that  sight  and  live. 
Prior  to  the  deluge,  the  earth  had  through  natural  revolutions 
and  vast  ages  of  reconstruction,  each  of  which  contained  ele- 
ments foreign  to  those  that  had  preceded  it,  overcome  the 
power  of  the  sun  to  preserve  an  atmosphere  all  over  the  earth 
throughout  the  year,  above  the  freezing  point  which  had  ad- 
vanced to  twenty  degrees  from  the  poles.  When  it  had  attained 
that  condition,  the  great  volume  of  foreign  water  containing  all 
the  haloids,  was  cast  upon  the  earth.  The  sun's  rays  had  orig- 


Man  and  the  Earth  39 

inally  combined  with  all  these  elements  to  produce  a  cold 
temperature  of  the  atmosphere  at  localities  where  the  heating 
property  of  the  sun's  rays  was  diminished  to  a  negative  quality. 
Light  and  heat  are  the  positive  qualities  of  the  sun's  rays.  Cold 
and  darkness  are  the  opposites  of  light  and  heat.  When  the 
electric  substance  contained  in  the  sun's  rays  manifesting  light 
and  heat,  strikes  the  earth,  its  warm  and  illuminated  side,  being 
flooded  with  light  and  heat,  becomes  the  positive  pole  of  the 
earth,  the  dark  and  cold  regions  of  the  earth  immediately  attract 
the  electric  substance  to  the  centers  of  cold  and  darkness  where 
it  combines  with  their  elements  and  assumes  a  negative  quality 
and  power.  As  only  a  small  band  of  the  earth  was  receiving 
the  vertical  rays  of  the  sun,  and  a  number  of  barriers  existed 
preventing  the  flow  of  water  that  was  warmed  by  the  rays 
of  the  sun  from  rushing  in  streams  to  the  cold  and  dark  regions 
of  the  earth  to  warm  the  water  and  atmosphere,  the  negative 
power  exercised  by  darkness,  water  and  its  constituents,  com- 
bined with  the  electric  substance  of  the  sun's  rays  distributed 
to  the  dark  and  cold  regions  of  the  earth,  so  much  overbalanced 
the  power  exercised  by  the  vertical  rays  of  the  sun,  that  the 
earth  was  soon  covered  with  a  mantle  of  ice  nearly  to  the  lines 
of  the  tropics. 

After  the  geographical  limits  or  the  ice  range  had  been 
established,  evaporation  within  the  limits  of  the  sun's  heating 
power  dried  up  the  saturated  lands  and  the  shallow  lakes 
and  seas.  A  portion  of  the  vapor  was  carried  to  the  north  and 
south  by  favoring  winds,  and  fell  as  crystals  white  upon  the 
rock  of  ice  to  freeze  and  rear  it  mountain  high.  At  length  the 
weight  of  ice  at  the  poles  began  to  effect  the  equipoise  of  the 
earth.  The  continual  agitation  of  the  waters  of  the  southern 
sea,  prevented  it  from  congealing  in  solid  mass,  and  hence  the 
north  having  no  deep  sea  near  the  polar  circle  in  solid  mass 
congealed.  And  so  the  north  overweighing  the  south  in  all 
substance,  became  top  heavy  and  began  to  bend  toward  or 
from  the  sun.  As  the  north  pole  slowly  bent  toward  the  sun, 
the  water  liberated  along  the  Pacific  and  the  rivers  flowing  into 
it  from  Asia  and  America,  poured  down  toward  the  equator. 
The  heat  which  had  been  imparted  to  the  water  south  of  the 
equator,  through  all  the  time  of  the  ice  formation,  before  the 
north  pole  had  begun  to  bend,  did  not  entirely  desert  it  as  the 


4O  Modernism 

body  of  water  now  being  heated  while  the  north  pole  tilted 
toward  the  sunset  new  currents  in  motion  forcing  the  newly 
heated  water  south,  keeping  the  water  in  the  broken  continent 
from  freezing  and  preventing  the  massing  ice  in  the  southern 
hemisphere  from  weighing  more  than  the  ice  and  water  in  the 
north  before  the  north  pole  had  bent  far  enough  toward  the 
sun  to  melt  the  ice  up  to  the  arctic  circle.  Except  the  water 
that  flowed  into  the  Pacific,  none  of  the  water  that  had  been 
liberated  while  the  north  pole  was  bending  toward  the  sun  on 
its  first  movement  in  that  direction,  had  been  carried  south  of 
the  equator.  Slowly  the  north  pole  kept  bending  toward  the 
sun,  and  when  the  ice  had  melted  nearly  to  the  polar  circle 
the  massed  ice  in  the  southern  hemisphere  had  overbalanced 
the  weight  of  substance  in  the  north,  and  the  axis  of  the  earth 
began  to  bend  the  other  way. 

The  south  pole  now  bending  the  first  time  toward  the  sun, 
eventually  broke  up  the  massive  ice  formation  of  the  south. 
Many  years  after  the  poles  began  to  bend,  the  vertical  rays 
of  the  sun  had  extended  to  thirty  degrees  north  and  south  lati- 
tude. At  this  time  the  ice  had  melted  nearly  to  the  poles.  After 
this,  the  swing  of  the  axis  gradually  decreased  yearly  until  it 
reached  nearly  at  its  present  movement,  the  central  sea  south 
of  the  British  Islands  and  Newfoundland,  and  north  of  the 
broad  isthmus  joining  Africa  and  Brazil,  cut  through  the  lime 
strata  near  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  the  isthmus  sunk  and  broke 
in  fragments  which  were  pushed  by  the  force  of  the  rushing  south- 
ern sea  toward  the  north.  And  at  the  same  time  the  central 
sea  forced  a  passage  near  the  eastern  border  of  Newfoundland. 
The  southern  sea  now  rushing  impetuously  toward  the  north 
smashed  the  ice  in  the  northen  sea,  and  these  on  the  surface 
of  a  great  tidal  wave  broke  through  the  land  joining  America 
to  Asia  and  as  it  swept  southward  it  buried  the  Aleutian  moun- 
tains beneath  the  sea. 

After  many  years  had  elapsed,  an  inland  sea  that  spread 
over  a  large  district  of  southeastern  Europe  and  western  Asia, 
the  Black  sea  being  a  part  of  its  southwestern  boundary,  the 
water  of  this  part  of  the  great  sea  eating  into  the  lime  strata 
near  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  finally  reached  the  basin  of  the  old 
volcanic  range  of  mountains  that  connected  Asia  Minor  with 
Europe.  When  this  event  occurred,  the  furnace  of  the  volcano 


Man  and  the  Earth  41 

boiled  the  water  into  steam  which  filling  all  the  space  below 
too  full  and  finding  insufficient  vent  at  the  old  mouth  of  the 
volcano  for  the  stream  compressed,  it  tore  the  mount  asunder 
and  opened  the  Bosphorus  gap  of  the  great  sea  to  empty  into 
the  Mediterranean.  This  deluged  Asia  Minor  and  the  Grecian 
Archipelago,  inundating  all  the  coast  of  the  greater  sea  and 
as  the  swelling  waves  rushed  on  they  choked  the  gates  of 
rocky  Gibraltar.  A  vast  area  by  the  cutting  of  the  outlet  for 
the  inland  sea  was  drained  and  dried  for  fitting  use  of  man 
and  beast.  The  revolution  of  the  axis  of  the  earth  from  one 
spring  equinox  to  another,  consumed  long  periods  of  time  in 
the  beginning.  The  first  revolution  the  longest  period.  The 
second  revolution  consumed  much  less  time.  The  third  revolu- 
tion consumed  very  much  less  time  than  the  second.*  The 
equilibrium  of  the  forces  in  operation  on  the  earth  at  that  time 
was  nearly  established.  While  these  revolutions  were  pro- 
gressing, the  barriers  that  were  holding  the  seas  apart,  and 
preventing  the  flow  of  warm  water  from  the  equator  to  both 
the  poles  were  gradually  breaking  down.  When  all  of  these 
barriers  were  swept  away,  the  currents  of  warm  water  were 
of  inestimable  value  in  the  final  dissolution  of  the  ice  formation. 
Through  the  power  exercised  by  these  currents,  and  the  evap- 
oration caused  by  the  sun's  rays,  the  land  was  drained  and 
dried  leaving  salt  and  other  substances  where  the  water  had 
lodged,  or  where  they  had  been  whirled,  deposited,  or  drifted. 
The  water  having  been  drained  off  the  land  except  in  deep 
cavities  where  a  few  inland  seas  and  lakes  still  remain,  all  the 
water  on  the  earth  with  these  exceptions,  being  free  to  flow 
through  one  great  ocean  without  a  substantial  barrier  to  inter- 
cept its  continual  movement;  the  earth  thus  having  attained  a 
tilting  motion  still  continues  it  through  the  operation  of  the 
same  forces  that  originally  started  it. 

All  the  water  in  the  great  ocean  being  free  to  move  now  to 
the  north  and  south  poles,  alternately,  the  weight  of  the  sub- 
stance at  one  pole  continues  to  overbalance  the  weight  of 
the  substance  at  the  other  pole  semi-annually,  thereby  pre- 
serving the  tilting  movement  of  the  earth.  As  the  congealed 


*  This  would  account  for  the  two  or  three  minor  ice  epochs,  as  the 
weight  of  all  substance  at  each  pole  had  to  overbalance  the  weight  at 
the  other  before  the  earth  began  to  tilt  the  other  way. 


42  Modernism 

water  in  the  southern  hemisphere  is  set  free  in  less  time  than 
in  the  northern  hemisphere,  the  balance  of  the  substance  of 
the  earth  which  occurs  in  March  and  September  of  each  year 
is  recovered  in  less  time  by  the  southern  hemisphere  than  it 
is  by  the  northern  hemisphere.*  After  the  deluge,  a  large  part 
of  the  desert  of  Sahara  was  an  inland  sea.  On  other  deserts 
where  any  of  the  land  was  low,  shallow  lakes  existed.  All 
depressions  of  the  earth  were  rilled  with  water.  When  the 
sun's  rays  through  evaporation  had  dried  these  depressions  up, 
deposits  of  salt  and  sand  were  left  where  these  lakes  and 
inland  seas  had  been.  The  eating  into  the  lime  strata  through 
fissures  under  the  ocean  and  inland  seas  or  lakes,  caused  much 
volcanic  action.  Through  such  means  continual  upheaval,  earth- 
quakes, and  subsidence  in  many  parts  of  the  earth  still  prevail. 
During  the  long  period  that  the  ice  had  been  accumulating 
at  the  north  and  south,  all  the  vegetable  species  had  changed 
its  old  color  from  red  and  white  to  green,  in  consequence  of 
the  large  amount  of  chlorine  and  other  gases  that  had  been 
deposited  on  the  earth  in  the  deluge  water.  And  by  these  an 
energy  that  had  not  existed  was  infused  into  the  lungs  of  all 
warm  blooded  animals.  During  the  first  ice  period,  or  the  life- 
time of  those  who  had  witnessed  the  deluge,  the  people  tried  to 
live  some  distance  from  the  sea  on  the  banks  of  rivers  near  the 
sea.  But  soon  the  seashores  began  to  feel  the  swarming  feet 
of  the  offsprings  of  the  ape  again.  The  branch  of  the  chim- 
panzee family  that  had  come  north  of  the  equator  before  the 
deluge,  continued  its  march  toward  the  north  during  the  ice 
period.  Eventually  they  arrived  on  a  southern  tributary  of  the 
Nile,  they  then  followed  that  stream  until  they  finally  came 
farther  north  than  the  ancient  boundary  of  Ethiopia.  The  off- 
springs of  the  gibbon  that  had  got  as  far  north  as  Mecca,  con- 
tinued their  march  up  along  the  eastern  fork  of  the  Red  sea  into 
the  valley  of  the  Dead  sea  after  the  deluge.  The  branch  of  the 
gibbon  family  which  advanced  first  and  had  arrived  on  the  shore 
of  the  Mediterranean,  wandered  along  the  southern  shores  of 
that  sea  and  some  of  them  crossed  the  isthmus  connecting  Africa 

*  The  time  will  never  come  unless  the  amount  of  water  on  the  earth 
should  be  increased  or  decreased,  that  the  northern  hemisphere  will  be 
farther  from  the  sun  in  winter  than  it  is  in  summer.  For  such  a  thing 
to  occur  the  northern  hemisphere  would  have  to  sink  and  the  southern 
hemisphere  rise. 


Man  and  the  Earth  43 

with  Brazil.  And  when  the  north  pole  began  to  bend  toward 
the  sun,  most  of  those  who  were  wandering  along  the  south 
shore  of  the  sea,  crossed  the  narrow  strait  and  wandered  up 
toward  the  north  along  the  Atlantic  until  they  came  to  the 
great  arm  of  land  that  reached  out  from  the  north  of  France 
to  Newfoundland,  wandering  out,  along  the  sea,  one  tribe  or 
more  of  this  branch,  crossed  to  North  America  and  continued 
their  march  until  they  found  themselves  on  the  northern  side 
of  Lake  Superior. 

A  large  part  of  this  branch  of  the  gibbons  which  did  not 
cross  the  Nile  when  the  north  pole  began  to  bend  toward  the 
sun  wandered  along  the  eastern  end  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Finally  they  wandered  along  the  northern  shore  of  this  sea  and 
up  the  Atlantic  as  the  first  advance  guard  had  done,  and  over 
on  the  cross-shaped  country  stretching  into  the  sea.  This 
country  reached  from  the  isthmus  connecting  Africa  with  Brazil, 
to  Iceland,  and  from  the  north  of  France  to  North  America. 
When  the  south  pole  was  bending  to  the  sun,  man  throughout 
all  cold  regions  began  to  clothe  himself  with  the  skins  of  ani- 
mals. Those  whom  we  left  in  the  valley  of  the  Dead  Sea  fol- 
lowing the  sun,  began  to  fight  their  way  to  the  north,  but  they 
soon  came  in  contact  with  herbivorous  animals  and  gradually 
began  to  use  them.  Those  whom  we  left  on  the  banks  of  the 
Indus,  after  fighting  their  way  up  that  river,  reached  the 
mountain  passes,  and  soon  beheld  herds  and  flocks  of  sheep 
and  cattle  of  every  kind.  The  manner  in  which  those  people 
became  sun  worshippers  is  graphically  described  in  an  early 
chapter  of  the  book.  As  the  sun,  moon  and  stars  were  believed 
to  be  persons,  attributing  to  them  personal  characteristics  and 
powers,  so  the  sun  which  had  been  Sat,  Saturn  and  Satin,  as 
an  old  bad  demon,  was  now  given  the  name  of  sky  father, 
embracing  the  names  of  Zeus  Petri  and  (Jupiter).  The  most 
primitive  people  had  called  the  moon  ma,  because  the  moon 
was  supposed  to  be  as  useful  to  all  the  people  as  the  mother 
is  to  her  child.  The  men  having  been  compelled  by  force  of 
the  circumstances  that  surrounded  them  while  they  were  fight- 
ing their  way  up  the  river  Indus  in  the  forests,  being  the  de- 
fenders and  feeders  of  the  family,  had  become  indispensably 
useful.  It  being  now  known  to  all  that  the  sun  was  much 
more  useful  to  them  than  the  moon,  the  sun  being  the  only 


44  Modernism 

natural  object  that  seemed  to  compare  in  usefulness  favorable 
with  the  male  parent,  it  was  called  the  sky  father. 

The  admiration,  love,  praise  and  expressions  of  gratitude 
which  had  formerly  been  bestowed  upon  the  moon,  were  now 
devoted  to  the  sun.  The  adoption  of  the  new  religion  sub- 
ordinated the  will  of  the  woman  to  the  will  of  the  man  and 
gave  him  power  to  rule  her  for  the  purpose  of  knowing  that  he 
would  be  the  father  of  the  children  that  she  might  become  the 
mother  of.  This  was  the  first  great  change  in  the  social 
phenomena.  The  change  had  been  made  before  the  new  re- 
ligious system  had  been  adopted,  but  it  did  not  become  a  civil 
and  religious  rule  until  the  chief  and  seer  of  the  tribe  had  so 
decreed.  Having  become  the  acknowledged  rule  of  one  tribe, 
it  soon  spread  to  most  of  the  tribes  of  mankind  through  inter- 
course of  the  chiefs  and  seers  of  one  nation  with  the  chiefs 
and  seers  of  another.  Most  of  the  customs,  maxims  and  rites 
that  had  been  established  during  the  long  period  in  which  moon 
worship  prevailed,  were  still  observed  by  the  sun  worshippers. 
No  rite  had  been  abolished,  but  in  some  cases  a  new  form  was 
substituted  for  the  old  manner  of  observing  the  rite.  The  ice 
period  that  followed  after  the  deluge,  produced  at  the  beginning 
a  great  change  in  the  atmosphere  all  over  the  earth.  This 
atmospheric  change  soon  convinced  primitive  man  that  the  sun 
was  more  useful  to  him  than  the  moon.  The  ancient  man 
having  forgotten  that  he  came  down  out  of  the  trees,  believed 
rightly  that  every  living  thing  came  up  originally  out  of  the 
water.  When  man  arrived  at  that  condition  of  mentality  which 
caused  him  to  think  of  things  historically,  he  traced  his  an- 
cestors back  to  the  sea.  But  the  most  primitive  men  were  no 
historians.  They  worshipped  the  moon  because  they  believed, 
notwithstanding  they  knew  it  was  very  limited  in  power,  that 
it  was  the  most  useful  object  in  nature  to  them.  Its  first 
appearance  was  hailed  with  acclamations  of  joy.  When  it  had 
arrived  at  maturity  as  their  sky  Ma,  they  watched  it  with  great 
happiness,  and  when  it  was  disappearing  they  kissed  their  hands 
to  it  as  to  a  benevolent  friend  leaving  them.  They  expressed 
feelings  of  sorrow  when  it  was  growing  old  and  small.  When 
it  disappeared  from  their  view  altogether,  their  sorrow  was 
such  as  one  feels  for  a  friend  who  had  been  laid  in  the  tomb 
or  grave.  When  it  was  eclipsed  by  the  shadow  of  the  earth 


Man  and  the  Earth  45 

they  were  excited  beyond  any  measure  of  description  with 
horror.  When  clouds  obscured  it,  they  were  angry  with  the 
clouds  and  spit  at  them  in  a  spiteful  manner. 

Regarding  the  moon  as  their  sky  Ma,  a  person,  they  tried 
to  follow  her  as  an  exemplar.  Believing  that  she  was  reborn 
by  going  into  a  cave  in  the  sky  when  she  was  obscured  by 
rays  of  the  sun;  they  went  into  caves  and  were  reborn.  Rebirth 
or  being  born  again,  has  ever  since  been  the  first  religious  rite 
that  all  religious  sects  have  considered  essential.  They  believed 
that  every  thing  that  appeared  to  them  in  dreams  was  abso- 
lutely true.  In  their  dreams  they  saw  giants,  pygmies  and  ani- 
mals in  shapes  unnatural.  When  they  saw  in  their  caves  shapes 
of  things  that  had  nearly  the  appearance  of  men  and  beasts, 
they  imagined  that  men  and  beasts  had  been  turned  into  stone. 
When  they  found  a  white  clay  they  used  it  to  paint  their  bodies 
white  like  the  moon.  This  garment  first  clothed  them  when 
they  arrived  at  the  age  or  time  of  maturity.  It  was  a  religious 
rite.  Large  sea  shells  were  struck  with  a  stone  hammer  to 
make  a  noise  for  the  purpose  of  driving  the  dragon  away  from 
the  moon  when  an  eclipse  occurred.  A  weed  like  our  milk 
weed  somewhat,  was  discovered.  They  called  it  the  moon  plant. 
Milk  oozed  from  the  stalk  when  it  was  mature.  The  milk  of 
this  weed  was  intoxicating.  When  they  drank  it  they  often 
imagined  that  they  were  communing  with  their  dead  relatives 
and  friends.  When  they  buried  their  friends  they  put  in  the 
grave  any  implement  they  used  while  living  and  something  to 
eat.  They  visited  the  grave  sometimes,  put  eatables  on  the 
grave  and  frequently  communed  with  the  dead  especially  when 
they  had  been  sucking  the  juice  out  of  the  moon  plant.  Every- 
thing that  they  believed  was  helpful  to  them  was  considered 
good,  all  other  things  were  bad.  All  their  customs,  rites  and 
beliefs  were  part  of  their  religion.  The  sun  worshippers  received 
all  these  things  from  their  ancestors  naturally  as  a  heritage 
from  the  dead.  The  sun  did  not  go  through  such  changes  as 
the  moon.  It  arose  out  of  the  water  and  went  down  into  the 
water,  they  believed,  therefore  it  was  reborn  every  morning. 
Immersion  or  baptism  was  substituted  for  going  into  the  cave 
in  order  to  be  reborn.  The  sun  being  red  when  seen  best  at 
evening  and  in  the  morning,  the  young  men  and  women  were 
painted  red.  Afterwards  there  was  added  to  this  at  midsummer, 


46  Modernism 

on  the  part  of  the  men,  a  test  of  physical  strength.  On  a  cer- 
tain occasion  a  man  was  hunting  for  food  for  the  family  and 
after  putting  several  arrows  into  the  body  of  a  wild  hog  he 
finally  killed  it.  It  had  been  a  hard  fight  and  he  talked  about 
it  after.  At  that  time  his  wife  had  brought  him  a  young  son, 
and  in  a  few  days  the  babe's  face  began  to  look  something  like 
a  pig's  face.  This  circumstance  soon  convinced  many  people 
that  the  pig's  shade  for  spite  or  to  get  satisfaction,  entered  the 
body  of  the  child.  Now  it  was  deemed  good  policy  for  hunters 
to  stay  in  bed  for  about  ten  days,  and  to  refrain  from  killing 
animals  until  the  new  born  child's  features  appeared  human  in 
every  respect.  This  custom  spread  throughout  the  world  and 
it  was  observed  as  strictly  as  any  religious  rite.  When  the  sun 
had  apparently  gone  south  as  far  as  it  ever  goes,  at  the  winter 
solstice,  it  then  appears  to  remain  stationary  for  a  couple  of 
days.  When  this  occurred,  the  old  sun  worshippers  were  afraid 
that  it  might  not  come  back  again.  They  then  commenced  to 
put  up  all  kinds  of  prayers  and  petitions  to  the  sun  to  induce 
it  to  come  back  again  to  the  north.* 

When  the  sun  seemed  to  advance  the  first  step  toward  them, 
they  broke  forth  in  acclamations  of  joy  and  happiness  the  same 
as  their  ancestors  did  when  the  new  moon  first  appeared  and 
the  same  as  we  do  at  Christmas.  It  was  a  universal  belief  that 
the  shades  of  animals  took  possession  of  human  bodies,  and 
when  one  of  them  belched  up  wind  from  his  stomach  he  usually 
said  thank  you  animal  believing  that  the  animal  who  had  taken 
possession  of  his  body  made  its  escape  when  he  belched  or 
eructed  wind.  While  the  animal  shades  had  possession  of  their 
bodies,  they  believed  that  these  animals  knew  everything  wrong 
that  they  did,  so  in  order  to  induce  these  animal's  shades  to 
leave  them  they  confessed  their  sins  thinking  that  the  animal 
who  sometimes  made  them  sick,  would  surely  leave  them  and 
they  would  have  no  more  trouble.  This  is  why  people  com- 
menced to  confess  their  sins,  but  it  became  a  religious  custom 
and  some  sects  have  not  abandoned  it  up  to  the  present  day. 
After  this  body  of  hunters  had  gained  the  highlands  with  their 
wives  and  children,  they  soon  began  to  live  on  the  milk  and 
flesh  of  cows,  goats,  sheep  and  cattle.  When  those  people 


*  This  custom  was  observed  by  the  Jews. 


Man  and  the  Earth  47 

arrived  there,  the  Caspian  sea  was  divided  by  a  low  spur  of  the 
Caucasus  mountains.  As  the  river  Volga  emptied  into  the 
sea  of  Azof  at  that  time  this  spur  of  the  Caucasus  was  used 
as  a  path  or  highway  in  after  years  for  several  tribes  to 
migrate  to  countries  west  and  southwest  of  the  Caspian,  but 
peace  and  prosperity  reigned  for  several  generations. 

During  the  very  primitive  ages  there  were  men  and  women 
who  were  naturally  qualified  to  take  some  thought  about  the 
moon  and  stars.  These  were  called  seers  and  medicine  men 
and  women.  By  constant  watching,  they  had  traced  the  path 
of  the  moon  from  year  to  year,  through  the  stars.  Eventually 
they  divided  the  stars  into  groups  as  the  moon  each  night 
reached  group  after  group  in  its  course  through  the  firmament. 
In  dividing  the  groups,  the  shapes  of  animals  that  the  groups 
were  thought  to  most  resemble  were  given  to  them.  After- 
wards, when  they  wandered  to  other  regions  of  the  earth,  the 
animals  that  attracted  their  attention  most  for  some  reason  were 
given  to  the  groups.  The  seers  now  having  a  greater  oppor- 
tunity to  view  the  heavens  than  ever  before,  through  more 
leisure  and  greater  elevation  of  land,  they  employed  themselves 
in  studying  every  part  of  the  heavens  assiduously.  Their  fathers 
named  the  host  of  heaven  through  countless  nights  in  times 
gone  by,  and  stored  on  memory's  tablet  are  the  beastly  names 
they  gave  them.  Each  child  when  born  received  the  name  of 
the  beast  the  father  saw  first  when  the  child  was  born.  But 
to  remodel  the  style  of  the  hunter's  thought  and  way,  to  the 
shepherd's  life  and  view,  the  seer  was  called  who  thus  declared 
"  The  child  should  be  named  for  the  stars  that  are  highest 
above  when  the  child  is  born.  In  the  zenith  you  will  see  if 
it  comes  in  the  night  and  I  will  tell  what  it  is  if  it  is  born 
any  time  after  the  stars  disappear."  So  the  custom  was  changed 
to  a  much  better  mode  of  naming  the  children  of  the  sun. 
Watching  their  cattle  as  they  moved  along  to  better  lands  for 
grazing  in  the  west,  they  eventually  found  themselves  near  the 
Aral  sea.  A  young  shepherdess  while  watching  her  sheep,  saw 
a  pig  rooting  up  the  ground  in  the  early  spring  and  during 
the  summer  a  patch  of  tall  grass  grew  on  a  part  of  the  ground 
that  the  pig  had  rooted  up.  This  grass  had  nice  ears  on  it 
when  it  was  full  grown,  and  when  the  ears  were  ripe  she  saw 
the  birds  pulling  at  them,  so  she  went  over  and  plucked  an  ear 


48  Modernism 

off  one  of  the  stalks  and  finding  that  the  seeds  tasted  good  she 
cut  the  stalks  down  and  carried  them  to  the  hut  she  slept  in. 
She  told  to  her  father  the  story  of  the  pig  rooting  up  the  ground 
and  the  tall  grass  growing  where  the  pig  had  been  rooting. 
Her  father  tasted  the  seed  and  thought  that  a  lot  of  them  would 
make  good  food.  So  they  got  all  of  the  seeds  out  of  the  ears 
and  saved  them  to  plant  early  in  the  following  spring.  Her 
father  dug  up  enough  soil,  not  very  deep,  when  the  frost  was 
out  of  the  ground  and  planted  the  seed.  The  young  virgin 
whose  name  was  changed  as  it  passed  from  one  language  to 
another  until  it  at  last  became  widely  known  as  Ceres,  watched 
the  grass  as  it  grew.  When  it  was  ripe  her  father  cut  it  down, 
and  this  time  they  had  quite  a  large  quantity  of  seed. 

Ceres  put  some  of  the  dry  seed  on  a  flat  stone,  and  with  a 
small  stone  in  her  hand  she  ground  the  seed  into  flour.  She 
then  built  a  little  fire  and  put  the  flat  stone  on  the  fire,  and 
while  the  stone  was  getting  hot  she  mixed  the  flour  with  some 
milk  and  made  a  little  pan  cake  and  baked  it  on  the  hot  stone. 
She  and  her  father  ate  the  pancake  and  they  found  it  so  palatable 
that  they  saved  all  the  rest  of  the  seed  for  planting  in  the  fol- 
lowing spring.  Her  father's  name  was  Bootes,*  he  was  a  strong 
and  brave  man.  He  had  killed  a  great  bear  in  his  youth  that 
every  one  feared.  When  the  spring  came  around  again,  he 
thought  it  would  be  too  much  of  a  job  to  dig  enough  ground 
to  plant  all  their  seed,  so  he  made  a  wooden  plow  and  hitched 
a  yoke  of  oxen  he  used  in  drawing  loads  to  the  plow.  After 
the  ground  was  plowed  he  sowed  the  seed,  and  he  and  the  oxen 
trampled  the  seed  down  so  that  it  was  covered  with  a  thin 
coat  of  soil.  When  it  grew  up  they  had  a  large  and  splendid 
patch  of  barley,  and  when  the  grain  was  ripe  for  cutting  and 
the  gentle  breeze  of  autumn  was  floating  over  the  field  of  barley 
the  beautiful  golden  tinted  ears  were  seen  to  shimmer  in  un- 
dulating movement  like  the  ocean's  waves.  This  field  of  barley 
they  called  their  garden.  The  faculty  of  comparison  was  very 
strong  in  primitive  man.  When  two  things  looked  nearly 
alike,  the  name  of  the  older  thing  was  applied  to  that  which 
resembled  it.  After  the  sun  had  disappeared  in  the  evening 
from  the  view  of  those  who  were  watching  the  garden  of  barley, 


*  Bootes  is  the  present  name.    What  the  man's  name  was  originally  we 
don't  know,  but  it  is  likely  that  he  was  the  first  man  constellated. 


Man  and  the  Earth  49 

turning  their  eyes  to  the  west  they  saw  a  shimmering  light 
gliding  up  higher  and  higher  in  the  western  sky,  which  was 
caused  by  the  reflection  of  the  sun's  rays  falling  on  the  At- 
lantic ocean.  This  beautiful  scene  they  named  a  garden  as 
it  seemed  to  look  like  their  own  garden  of  barley,  and  they 
called  it  the  garden  of  the  west.  The  killing  of  the  dangerous 
bear  by  Bootes,  his  invention  of  the  plow  and  a  number  of 
other  useful  things  he  did  raised  him  so  much  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  people  that  when  he  died,  the  cluster  of  stars 
which  had  been  known  as  the  barking  dog,  under  which  he 
was  born,  lost  its  animal  name  and  was  ever  after  his  death 
called  the  stars  of  Bootes.  And  under  the  constellation  of 
Bootes,  there  is  a  cluster  of  stars  which  originally  had  an 
animal  name.  When  Ceres,  the  virgin,  died  because  her  life 
had  been  so  useful  to  the  human  family,  this  cluster  of  stars 
by  common  consent  lost  its  animal  name  and  was  ever  after 
called  the  stars  of  The  Virgin.  The  sun  being  an  exemplar  to 
his  children  his  course  through  the  sky  from  new  moon  to  new 
moon  was  noted. 

By  the  tilting  movement  of  the  earth  the  north  and  south 
poles  alternately  inclined  toward  the  sun.  This  movement  pro- 
duced summer  and  winter  in  the  north  and  south  each  year. 
From  the  beginning  of  vegetable  growth  until  vegetable  growth 
ceased  each  year,  occupied  about  seven  moons.  At  the  full 
moon  of  each  month  votive  offerings  were  presented  to  the 
sun.  This  had  been  one  of  the  customs  of  the  moon  wor- 
shippers. They  offered  such  things  as  the  earth  produced. 
Things  that  were  useful  to  themselves  and  their  domesticated 
animals.  In  the  first  moon  eggs  and  lentils  were  offered.  In 
the  second  such  early  vegetables  as  the  earth  produced.  In 
third,  blossoms  and  flowers.  In  the  fourth  barley  ears  and 
early  fruit.  In  the  fifth,  pancakes  and  fruit  juice.  The  sixth 
was  the  great  harvest  festival  of  late  fruit  and  all  other  things 
that  the  earth  produced.  In  the  seventh  month  the  grass  had 
been  cropped  close  to  the  earth  by  the  cattle,  and  there  was 
nothing  left  for  them  to  feed  upon  but  thorn  bushes  and  thistles.* 
All  votive  offerings  were  twined  or  wreathed  in  the  shape  of 
a  crown.  The  sun  now  sinking  into  the  region  of  darkness  was 

*  When  sun  worship  was  succeeded  by  personifications  of  the  sun  in  the 
ritual  the  personification  was  crowned  with  thorns. 


50  Modernism 

crowned  with  thorns  and  thistles.  Then  came  wreaths  of  barley 
straw  sprinkled  with  milk.  This  straw  was  piled  up  at  the  end 
of  a  long  shed  built  for  sheltering  lambs  and  kids.  The  kids 
and  lambs  fed  on  this  principally  when  they  were  born  at  any 
time  during  the  winter,  when  their  mothers  had  an  insufficient 
supply  of  milk  to  feed  them.  The  cattle  fed  on  it  also,  when 
the  snow  was  too  deep  to  be  removed  by  their  hoofs  in  search- 
ing for  grass.  This  long  shed  was  put  up  by  the  seers  in  the 
extreme  summer  quarter  of  the  heavens.  It  is  called  the  stable 
of  Argus.  When  the  winter  solstice  arrived,  their  wreath  was 
made  of  evergreens.  These  evergreens  being  the  only  vegetable 
substance  alive  continued  to  be  their  votive  offering  until  the 
spring  opened. 

When  they  invented  sand  glasses,  which  recorded  the  hours 
of  day  and  night,  they  found  that  the  noted  points  on  the  sun 
dials  agreed  with  the  sand  glasses  in  determining  that  at  both 
points  the  days  and  nights  were  of  equal  length.  These  were 
then  called  the  equinoctial  points.  From  these  two  points  of 
the  sun's  course  in  the  heavens  a  line  was  established.  After- 
wards when  it  was  known  by  the  seers  that  the  sun  was  not 
a  god,  and  a  more  elaborate  system  of  religion  was  organized 
allegorizing  the  sun,  the  man  or  supposed  man  who  personified 
the  sun  was  said  to  be  crossified  in  September  when  the  sun 
crossed  the  equinoctial  line.  Sun  and  moon  worship  had  been 
merged  a  long  time  before  the  age  of  allegory. 

We  are  now  thousands  of  years  away  from  our  great  people 
living  near  the  Caspian  sea;  let  us  get  back  to  them.  With 
them  it  was  an  age  of  thought  and  invention.  They  had  in- 
creased in  number  and  were  cultivating  the  light  soil  near  the 
Caspian  sea.  Their  empire  reached  east  to  Tibet,  north  to  the 
river  Obi,  and  west  and  south  to  western  Europe  and  Iran. 
Their  boats  now  cross  the  Caspian  sea  and  also  the  Aral.  All 
over  the  land  meteoric  iron  had  been  discovered  but  it  was 
too  hard  to  utilize  much  of  it  for  any  purpose.  In  following 
their  cattle  and  looking  out  for  good  pasture  land  for  all  seasons 
of  the  year,  a  young  chief  had  extended  his  investigations  as 
far  north  as  the  Ural  mountains.  Stone  had  been  used  for 
arrow  and  spear  heads,  and  for  knives  and  some  other  imple- 
ments. They  were  continually  on  the  lookout  for  something 
better  than  stone  for  such  purposes.  The  young  chief  referred 


Man  and  the  Earth  5 1 

to,  on  one  of  his  tours  to  the  north,  had  discovered  at  the 
base  of  the  Ural  mountains,  some  large  pieces  of  magnetic  iron. 
He  hammered  these  pieces  with  his  stone  hammer  into  proper 
shape  for  a  few  arrow  heads  and  knives.  He  had  boats  that 
he  used  on  the  rivers  and  near  the  land  on  the  sea.  One  day 
while  he  was  moving  around  in  his  boat  on  the  sea,  an  arrow 
slipped  out  of  the  holder  falling  into  the  water  the  head  toward 
the  south.  The  head  of  the  arrow  immediately  swung  around 
toward  the  north.  This  action  of  the  arrow  caused  him  to 
replace  the  arrow  in  the  water  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  if  it 
would  perform  the  same  act  again.  Seeing  that  it  did,  he  tried 
it  several  times  with  the  same  result.  He  then  tried  all  of  his 
arrows  and  found  that  those  which  had  iron  heads  acted  •  the 
same  as  the  first,  and  those  with  stone  heads  remained  quiet 
in  the  position  in  which  he  placed  them  in  the  water.  When  he 
got  to  the  camp  of  the  tribe,  he  called  the  attention  of  the 
seer  of  the  tribe  to  the  action  of  the  arrows.  The  seer  was  an 
elderly  man  and  quite  a  good  astronomer.  He  experimented 
with  one  of  the  arrows  and  then  compared  it  with  an  astron- 
omical instrument  that  pointed  to  the  stars  around  which  all 
the  other  stars  seemed  to  revolve.  He  saw  that  the  arrow 
head  and  staff  compared  with  the  pointer  of  his  instrument  as 
near  as  possible. 

At  that  time  the  north  pole  of  the  earth  was  not  permanently 
established.  The  young  chief  now  went  to  the  place  where 
he  had  found  the  iron  and  gathered  up  every  bit  of  it  that 
he  could  find.  The  arrow  he  had  given  to  the  seer  was  left 
with  him  so  that  he  could  call  the  attention  of  the  other  seers 
to  the  matter.  It  was  finally  agreed  by  them  that  this  dis- 
covery was  a  thing  of  so  much  importance  that  it  should  be 
kept  a  secret  from  the  common  people.  For  official  use  a 
reed  was  cut  in  two  pieces,  the  hollow  part  of  the  pieces  was 
cleansed  out  and  filled  with  air  blown  into  the  pieces  by  the 
mouth  of  a  person  and  then  plugged  up  at  each  end.  At  the 
end  of  one  piece  a  small  piece  of  the  iron  was  placed  where  it 
could  not  be  seen.*  The  other  piece  of  the  reed  was  fastened 
at  the  centre  as  a  crossbar  to  denote  east  and  west.  A  vase 
called  a  cup,  was  then  filled  with  water  and  the  cross  was  placed 
in  the  water  to  float.  The  rim  of  the  cup  was  then  marked 

*  This  was  the  reed  and  fire  that  the  great  Titan  stole  from  heaven. 


52  Modernism 

to  indicate  the  degrees  of  departure  from  the  cardinal  points. 
A  long  time  after  this  discovery,  in  the  age  of  fire,  the  cup 
containing  the  cross  was  placed  up  in  heaven  on  the  back  of 
the  Hydra  near  the  point  where  the  equinoctial  crosses  the 
equinoctial  colure  and  the  earth's  orbit.*  That  cup  contained 
the  knowledge  of  the  gods.  Hercules  used  it  in  one  of  his 
voyages.  As  this  arrow  seemed  to  contain  intelligence  and  life, 
the  star  to  which  it  pointed  was  called  the  tree  of  life. 

Thought  or  meditation  was  the  most  important  part  of  the 
education  of  every  seer.  It  was  inculcated  for  the  purpose  of 
helping  the  inventive  faculties,  and  for  ascertaining  the  cause 
of  certain  phenomena  which  they  did  not  understand,  and  to 
arrive  at  the  truth  as  near  as  possible  about  everything.  This 
was  a  high  and  holy  aspiration.  If  you  wonder  at  the  mighty 
things  those  people  with  small  skulls  did  who  were  so  simple, 
ignorant  and  superstitious  in  many  respects,  look  at  the  work 
of  ants,  bees,  beavers  and  other  animals  and  insects.  One  of 
those  seers  meditating  on  what  his  eyes  beheld,  having  a  perfect 
knowledge  of  all  the  imagined  truths  taught  by  the  most  learned 
and  respected  seers  of  his  community,  had  just  discovered  a 
new  and  great  truth  in  his  mind.  Having  witnessed  on  many 
occasions  a  glowing  red  appearance  in  the  eastern  sky  some 
time  before  sunrise,  and  having  seen  the  same  fiery  glowing 
red  color  of  the  western  sky  when  the  sun  had  set,  and  then 
on  his  lofty  perch  on  the  plain  of  Ust-Urt  looking  toward  the 
north  on  a  clear  moonless  night,  he  witnessed  the  electric  dis- 
play so  often  seen  even  lower  than  our  own  latitude.  As  he 
meditated  on  what  he  saw  the  sun  being  below  the  horizon 
when  he  had  witnessed  all  these  lights,  he  concluded  that  these 
lights  were  the  tops  of  blazes  from  a  great  fire  that  was  behind 
the  earth.  He  made  a  great  discovery.  The  fire  behind  the 
earth  became  the  fountain  of  life  and  heat.  The  sun  and  all 
the  other  orbs  of  light  received  and  renewed  their  fires  from 
this  blazing  fire.  It  was  eventually  called  the  hearth  of  the 
universe.  Although  it  was  an  idea  based  on  ignorance  of  fact, 
it  became  the  supreme  god  from  which  all  the  other  lights  in 
heaven  emanated.  This  idea  spread  through  the  greater  part 
of  the  earth.  The  family  hearth  in  every  habitation  symbolized 
that  fire  or  the  hearth  of  the  universe.  The  ceaseless  fires  on  every 

*  This  is  called  the  cup  of  Media. 


Man  and  the  Earth  53 

altar  also  symbolized  that  fire.  Fire  became  a  sacred  element 
and  it  was  preserved  and  protected  in  temples  and  all  the  habi- 
tations of  men,  but  yet  the  great  host  of  humanity  still  wor- 
shipped the  sun  and  moon. 

The  development  of  this  idea  produced  an  ambitious  desire 
among  the  great  seers  of  the  world  to  get  as  complete  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  heavens  as  possible.  The  result  was  that  in  time 
they  discovered  that  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  and  the  earth 
revolved  around  the  hearth  of  'the  universe,  in  addition  it  was 
called  the  central  fire.  Having  a  new  supreme  god  a  new 
religious  system  must  be  established.  The  most  important  rite 
of  both  moon  and  sun  worship  was  rebirth.  To  be  a  son  or 
daughter  of  either  the  moon  or  sun  it  was  necessary  to  be 
born  again  according  to  the  customs  of  both  religions.  While 
the  applicant  for  initiation  into  the  mysteries  of  the  new  society 
might  conform  to  the  customs  of  the  older  systems  in  the 
matter  of  rebirth,  it  was  necessary  now  for  a  son  or  daughter 
of  the  new  supreme  god,  to  pass  through  fire  in  order  to  be 
reborn.  All  along  at  the  head  of  every  tribe  there  was  the 
chief,  now  a  number  of  the  seers  met  in  a  private  council,  sev- 
eral of  them  had  private  confabs  with  each  other  on  the  matter 
they  were  going  to  talk  about.  Their  argument  was  that  as 
they  possessed  most  of  the  knowledge  about  things  in  general, 
especially  the  celestial  knowledge,  that  in  place  of  occupying 
the  second  place  in  the  body  politic,  they  ought  to  rank  first. 
They  drew  up  a  code  of  rules  dividing  all  the  people  into  four 
classes,  but  they  kepit  this  part  of  the  plot  to  themselves.  The 
only  thing  they  made  public  was,  that  as  they  possessed  more 
knowledge  than  the  chiefs  or  any  one  else,  they  ought  to  have 
the  power  of  issuing  all  decrees  and  of  being  subject  only  to 
their  own  rules  and  regulations. 

As  the  great  body  of  the  people  had  a  superstitious  respect 
for  the  seers  their  plot  was  practically  successful.  At  the 
northern  end  of  the  Caspian  sea,  there  were  three  brothers  each 
of  whom  was  a  chief.  Their  names  were  At,  Er  and  Brit.  At 
had  many  boats  moored  on  the  northern  end  of  the  Caspian 
sea.  He  carried  on  considerable  trade  with  the  people  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  sea  wMi  his  boats.  When  the  first  decree 
was  issued  by  the  seers  he  made  up  his  mind  to  rebel  against 
it  at  once.  The  seers  on  the  northern  side  of  the  sea  had  not 


54  Modernism 

been  consulted.  At  being  a  man  of  great  intelligence  for  the 
time,  he  united  all  the  people  on  the  northern  and  western  sides 
in  his  cause.  Preparations  now  commenced  for  a  clash  of  arms. 
On  the  eastern  side  of  the  sea  the  people  outnumbered  those 
on  the  northern  and  western  side  ten  to  one  at  least.  The 
seers  now  organized  a  large  party  of  young  men  to  make  a 
quick  tour  around  the  north  end  of  the  sea  on  horseback  for 
the  purpose  of  driving  all  the  sheep  and  cattle  around  to  their 
side.  In  the  eastern  part  of  Europe  at  that  time  many  of  the 
beasts  of  prey  that  had  been  driven  out  of  central  Asia  had 
been  making  that  part  of  the  world  their  home,  this  fact  kept 
the  young  men  in  continual  warfare  with  these  animals.  The 
spear  and  bow  and  arrow  had  entirely  taken  the  place  of  clubs 
and  stones.  One  of  At's  boatmen  had  seen  the  young  men 
on  parade,  and  learned  their  object.  At  now  got  busy  and 
soon  had  a  small  army  of  picked  men  under  his  own  command 
ready  to  receive  the  horsemen.  In  place  of  surprising  At  he 
surprised  them.  He  had  his  horsemen  armed  with  spears  while 
the  men  on  foot  were  well  practised  archers.  It  was  no  battle, 
the  archers  were  in  the  front  line  and  the  horsemen  were  in 
the  rear.  The  first  volley  of  arrows  threw  the  seer's  company 
of  horsemen  into  disorder,  At  and  his  company  of  horsemen 
followed  them  as  far  as  he  thought  it  was  judicious.  It  was 
a  jovial  party  that  returned  to  their  camp  that  night,  They 
celebrated  their  victory  until  sunrise  on  the  following  morn- 
ing. In  a  few  days  a  small  fleet  under  the  command  of  At 
sailed  across  the  Caspian  for  the  main  purpose  of  securing 
some  barley  but  when  they  arrived  on  the  other  side  they  ascer- 
tained from  some  friends  who  intended  to  join  them,  that  prepar- 
ations were  making  on  a  large  scale  to  organize  a  great  army 
to  suppress  the  rebellion.  At  advised  his  friends  to  get  as  many 
chiefs  as  they  could  to  join  them  and  to  secure  barley  and 
other  kinds  of  provisions,  arms,  their  families  and  friends,  and 
cattle,  do  their  work  expeditiously  and  he  would  march  with 
every  man  he  could  arm  to  their  assistance.  If  they  could 
induce  a  large  enough  number  to  join  them  they  would  unite 
their  forces  and  attack  the  seer's  army  and  surely  defeat  it. 
At  returned  but  left  a  few  spies  in  good  boats  to  watch  the 
enemy  and  communicate  with  their  friends. 


Man  and  the  Earth  55 

The  dissension  among  the  people  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
sea  did  not  assume  a  very  grave  character  as  only  three  chiefs 
advanced  in  years,  and  seven  young  ones,  joined  the  forces  of 
rebellion.  These  were  the  only  ones  who  could  secure  most 
of  the  members  of  their  tribes  to  act  against  the  seers.  How- 
ever, they  were  brave  men  and  they  went  out  defiantly  with 
all  their  goods  and  marched  around  the  northern  end  of  the 
Caspian  sea.  But  the  seers  gave  them  warning  that  if  they 
joined  the  enemies  of  their  gods  that  they  would  surely  destroy 
them.  When  all  the  rebellious  chiefs  had  come  together  to 
discuss  the  situation  that  confronted  them,  they  finally  resolved 
that  it  would  be  foolish  for  so  small  an  army  as  they  could 
muster,  to  attempt  to  overcome  the  great  army  that  the  seers 
were  organizing.*  It  was  in  our  month  of  May  that  they  built 
their  last  fires  to  propitate  the  supreme  god  for  guidance  and 
fortune.  All  the  omens  prophesied  success  in  the  enterprise  they 
were  directed  to  undertake,  to  reach  the  golden  land  of  the 
sun  in  the  west.  They  resolved  also  to  commemorate  their  last 
hearth  fire  forever  if  fortune  smiled  on  them  in  the  country 
which  would  become  their  final  home.  This  rebellion  was  the 
rebellion  in  heaven  referred  to  in  the  cosmogies  of  the  most 
ancient  people  who  had  written  documents.  At  is  Lucifer, 
who  was  the  wisest  and  brightest  ornament  of  that  ancient 
society.  The  legends  of  many  nations  which  had  no  knowledge 
of  where  they  came  from  originally,  got  their  idea  of  a  prom- 
ised land  from  the  legend  referring  to  the  oracle  promising  a 
home  in  a  fertile  land  to  At  and  his  brethren. 

We  will  continue  the  story  of  At  and  his  companions  at  the 
north  end  of  the  Caspian  sea.  Their  boats  were  placed  on 
carts  for  oxen  to  draw  them.  All  their  tents  and  other  prop- 
erty were  fastened  on  the  backs  of  cattle,  asses  and  mules. 
Taking  up  the  march  toward  the  setting  sun,  day  after  day  they 
continued  without  stopping,  crossing  all  rivers  and  streams 
at  most  convenient  places  till  they  found  themselves  on  the 
beach  of  the  Baltic  sea.  The  shell  fish  of  the  Caspian  sea  had 
become  too  poor  to  make  good  food,  but  now  they  found  a 
sea  that  had  a  great  supply  of  fine  shell  fish.  This  circum- 

*  Finding  that  their  attempt  to  elevate  themselves  was  the  cause  of 
much  strife  among  those  who  did  not  rebel,  they  abandoned  their 
demand  until  they  had  come  into  India. 


56  Modernism 

stance  prevented  the  further  progress  of  the  great  body  of  the 
people  for  some  time  as  the  old  appetite  for  shell  fish  returned, 
but  At  and  a  large  delegation  well  armed,  with  plenty  of  pro- 
visions went  on  a  tour  of  inspection.  After  traveling  on  horse- 
back  out  on  the  great  arm  of  land  in  the  western  sea  described 
in  another  part  of  this  history  heretofore,  they  returned  to  the 
Baltic  and  began  to  prepare  for  a  final  settlement  of  the  people 
in  the  country  last  referred  to.  The  people  living  in  this  coun- 
try were  the  offsprings  of  the  gibbon  which  had  first  wandered 
along  the  beach.  Some  of  the  mixed  brood  of  the  chimpanzee 
and  gibbon  that  had  wandered  all  along  the  southern  shore  of 
the  Mediterranean,  had  crossed  the  straits  and  were  occupying 
a  part,  of  the  country.  The  original  inhabitants  being  scattered 
mostly  along  the  sea  shore  could  only  make  a  poor  resistance 
to  the  new  comers.  The  country  was  naturally  divided  into 
three  grand  sections;  between  each  a  low  stretch  of  meadow 
land.  The  first  connected  by  one  of  the  valleys  with  the  north 
of  France.  This  section  or  country  fell  by  lot  to  Brit.  The 
second  division  fell  to  Er.  .  The  third  and  largest  division  fell 
to  At.  The  ten  chiefs  who  joined  At's  rebellion,  were  each 
made  a  governor  of  one  of  the  ten  sections  or  principalities 
that  the  country  was  divided  into.  A  great  highway  was  cut 
from  the  seat  of  government  of  Atland,  through  Erland,  to 
the  site  of  the  present  city  of  London.  This  was  Brit's  capital 
but  the  road  continued  through  the  north  of  France  and  up 
to  the  Baltic  sea.  In  time  tin  was  discovered  in  Brit's  land, 
and  when  it  was  used  in  other  places  it  was  called  Brit's  tin, 
from  which  the  name  of  Britain  is  derived.  After  all  the 
shallow  seas  and  lakes  in  every  part  of  the  world  had  been 
dried  up  through  evaporation,  and  many  lands  had  sunk  and 
risen  through  volcanic  action,  the  evaporated  water  was  added 
to  the  ocean,  the  valleys  between  France,  Britain,  Erland  and 
Atland  through  these  forces  the  valleys  sunk  beneath  the  seas 
thus  dividing  them  into  separate  islands.  This  had  come  to 
pass  while  At,  who  was  king  of  Atland  was  still  young.  His 
country  thus  being  separated  from  all  the  rest  of  the  world, 
his  genius  for  boat  building  now  was  developed  to  a  degree 
that  made  him  the  wonder  of  the  world.  Using  the  compass 
or  cross  placed  in  a  bowl  or  cup  of  water  as  it  is  represented 
on  the  back  of  the  Hydra  constellation,  his  ships,  the  first 


Man  and  the  Earth  57 

that  had  ever  been  built  on  the  earth,  propelled  by  many 
oarsmen  were  soon  navigating  the  sea  that  was  named  for  him 
and  his  country.  Atlan-tic  or  Atland  sea.  And  Atlas  moun- 
tains bordering  on  the  sea.  These  are  the  names  the  people 
living  at  the  trading  ports  on  the  Mediterranean  gave  to  Atland, 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Atlas  mountains.  Every  nation  with  which 
they  had  any  commercial  intercourse  has  preserved  the  names 
their  ancestors  applied  to  the  people  and  to  things  belonging 
to  them. 

The  Atlantians  departed  from  their  native  country  when  it 
had  arrived  at  its  highest  point  of  useful  knowledge.  When 
allegory  took  the  place  of  honest  ignorance,  that  moment  man, 
the  multitude,  began  to  enter  a  wilderness  out  of  which  he 
has  not  returned;  hence  the  power  exercised  over  the  minds 
of  the  lost,  by  the  Grand  Lama  of  Tibet  and  the  Pope  of  Rome. 
When  the  first  ship  of  Atland  with  a  band  of  oarsmen  on  each 
side,  their  heads  only  observable,  their  oars  like  great  arms 
dipping  into  the  water,  like  a  huge  caterpillar  moving  near 
the  sea  shore  too  distant  to  be  inspected,  you  have  here  the 
impression  it  made  on  the  minds  of  the  beholders,  by  the  name 
they  gave  it.  Briareus  with  his  fifty  heads,  one  hundred  eyes 
and  as  many  arms.  When  the  people  on  the  shores  of  the 
great  inland  sea,  had  come  into  contact  with  this  race  of  well 
fed  men,  whose  labor  and  exercise  had  for  years  been  the  means 
of  producing  a  race  of  tall  and  athletic  men,  they  called  those 
sailors  Titans  and  Giants,  because  they  were  taller  and  stronger 
than  the  common  races  of  mankind.  As  time  advanced  they 
traded  at  all  the  sea  ports  of  the  Atlantic  and  carried  war  into 
the  Mediterranean,  conquering  the  nations  on  both  sides  of 
that  sea  as  far  as  Italy  and  Egypt. 

Prior  to  this,  they  had  secured  territorial  rights  to  land  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Nile  and  planted  a  colony  there.  They  also 
planted  a  large  colony  in  Phoenicia,  and  possibly  in  Etruria. 
Being  masters  of  the  whole  sea  coast  except  the  Athenian  king- 
dom, they  finally  prepared  a  large  fleet  to  attack  the  people 
of  Athens  along  the  whole  coast  line.  The  battle  was  waged 
for  several  days  but  in  the  end  the  Titans,  as  they  were  called, 
were  defeated.  There  was  a  combustible  called  Greek  fire 
which  was  used  by  the  Athenians.  It  was  thrown  into  the 
ships  of  the  Atlantians.  It  was  through  the  use  of  tliis  com- 


58  Modernism 

bustible  that  they  were  defeated.  The  making  of  it  was  a 
secret  known  only  to  a  certain  family.  The  commander  of  the 
Atlantian  fleet  did  not  intend  to  return  home  a  defeated  officer, 
and  as  he  was  a  son  of  the  reigning  monarch  he  had  power 
to  act  as  he  thought  best  in  any  contingency  in  the  final  accom- 
plishment of  the  object  of  the  expedition,  so  he  retreated  with 
what  ships  and  men  he  had  left,  to  Sidon  where  they  had 
planted  a  colony,  with  the  intention  of  discovering  by  any 
means  possible  the  manner  in  which  this  combustible  was  made, 
so  that  he  would  be  able  in  his  next  attack  on  the  people  of 
the  Athenian  state,  to  beat  them  with  their  own  tools. 

It  seems  that  they  were  successful  in  the  matter  of  finding 
out  how  Greek  fire  was  made,  but  the  first  we  have  any  knowl- 
edge of  their  use  of  it,  was  when  one  of  their  offsprings,  Hanni- 
bal, used  it  in  blowing  up  rocks,  clearing  a  way  for  his  ele- 
phants to  cross  the  Alps. 

After  the  fight  between  the  Athenians  and  Atlantians  had 
taken  place,  and  before  the  report  of  it  had  reached  Egypt, 
Sidon,  or  any  distant  point,  the  comet  which  had  drenched  the 
earth,  which  passes  near  us  every  thirty-three  years,  while  mov- 
ing through  the  atmosphere  was  thrown  into  great  disorder, 
filling  the  heavens  with  a  pyrotechnical  display.  This  occurring 
near  the  time  of  the  great  battle  between  the  Athenians  and 
Titans,  tradition,  when  all  the  knowledge  of  the  facts  was  long 
forgotten,  claimed  the  meteoric  display  as  a  battle  of  the  gods. 
And  when  another  people  wandered  over  the  north  and  saw  the 
great  boulders  that  the  ice  had  dropped  upon  the  land,  and 
the  stone  implements  the  most  ancient  people  used  while  living 
there,  these  were  clear  proofs  that  Jupiter  and  his  followers 
and  Saturn  and  the  Titans  used  those  boulders  and  man-made 
implements  in  their  war.  And  the  huge  skeletons  of  whales 
with  the  hole  in  the  center  of  the  head  which  the  whale  used 
to  cast  the  water  up  that  came  into  its  mouth,  the  eyes  too 
small  to  be  seen,  this  hole  was  the  one  eye  of  the  mythical 
cyclop.  The  skeletons  of  other  huge  animals  dropped  by  the 
melting  ice  were  the  skeletons  of  the  great  Titans  who  fought 
against  Jupiter  and  his  friends.  This  battle,  by  mixing  it  with 
the  rebellion  of  At  was  the  war  in  heaven  in  which  Jupiter 
and  Lucifer  were  such  prominent  actors.  In  their  communi- 
cation with  people  of  all  nations,  it  occurred  to  their  soldiers 


Man  and  the  Earth  59 

and  sea-men  as  it  always  does  to  the  same  classes  even  at  the 
present  day,  that  these  nien  having  close  communication  with 
women,  many  of  whom  were  unclean,  the  most  virulent  con- 
tagious disease  known  to  man  was  the  result.  To  prevent  and 
render  their  men  immune  in  their  relations  with  the  women  of 
other  nations,  they  found  it  necessary  at  last,  on  account  of 
the  spreading  of  the  disease  among  the  people  at  home,  to  cir- 
cumcise all  the  male  children  a  short  time  after  their  birth. 
This  custom  through  their  introduction  of  it  in  their  colonies 
along  the  Mediterranean,  spread  throughout  a  large  part  of 
Asia  and  Africa.  A  long  time  before  the  events  referring  to 
their  trading  with  the  people  in  southern  Europe,  Asia  and 
Africa;  they  discovered  Indians  near  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 
sippi river.  These  Indians  had  copper  ornaments  and  other 
things.  The  Indians  informed  them  that  the  copper  came  from 
the  north.  These  Indians  were  the  offsprings  of  the  tribes 
that  crossed  over  to  North  America  when  the  offsprings  of  the 
gibbon  first  passed  along  the  beach  of  England,  Ireland  and 
Atland. 

They  continued  their  march  to  the  northern  side  of  Lake 
Superior  and  after  remaining  there  a  long  time  they  eventually 
made  their  way  down  the  Mississippi  to  the  place  the  sailors 
of  Atland  found  them.  Those  sailors  of  Atland  when  they 
returned  home  with  some  of  the  copper,  a  large  fleet  was  con- 
structed with  oars,  and  taking  some  of  the  Indians  with  them 
they  pulled  up  the  river  Mississippi  until  they  found  the  mines 
where  the  copper  was  taken  from.  It  took  a  long  time  to 
find  the  mines  and  by  many  years  of  labor  and  toil  the  mines 
were  worked.  Now  fusing  the  tin  of  Atland,  which  they  had 
used,  with  the  ore  of  copper,  they  produced  bronze  implements, 
vases  and  all  kinds  of  arms  and  other  things  that  metal  can 
be  used  for.  With  these  they  enriched  themselves  by  trade 
with  the  world  known  to  them,  in  gold,  silver  and  the  choicest 
work  of  hands.  When  they  were  near  the  top  of  wealth,  glory 
and  knowledge,  sacred  and  profane,  an  army  comprised  of  their 
princes  of  wealth  and  refinement,  emigrated  to  the  rich  valley 
of  the  Nile  where  some  of  their  ancestors  had  a  settlement. 
The  land  was  in  possession  of  the  sons  of  the  gibbon  and  the 
chimpanzee.  They  were  cultivating  the  soil  and  using  animals 
that  came  from  the  former  home  of  the  ancestors  of  the  At- 


60  Modernism 

lantians.  These  princes  of  wealth  secured  a  large  territorial 
domain  from  the  men  who  possessed  the  land,  and  added  to 
their  numbers  yearly  from  their  father  land,  establishing  a 
kingdom  which  soon  became  the  greatest  on  earth.  Much  later 
some  emigrants  from  Atland  settled  in  Central  America  and 
Peru.  In  much  later  time  an  army  from  upper  China,  whose 
ancestors  had  never  learned  the  theology  of  the  gibbons,  and 
therefore  did  not  count  their  time  by  moons,  but  making  months 
of  twenty  days  of  the  sun,  giving  every  day  a  name,  crossed 
in  boats  along  the  Aleutian  island  and  overthrew  the  govern- 
ment of  Mexico.  The  power  and  glory  the  Atlantians  attained 
was  due  to  the  little  cross  composed  of  two  pieces  of  reed,  in 
the  upper  end  of  one,  unseen,  was  a  small  piece  of  magnetic 
iron.  This  cross  floated  in  an  open-mouthed  vase  filled  with 
water.  It  was  discovered  in  the  age  of  fire.  It  was  a  gift 
from  heaven.  It  pointed  to  the  pole  star,  the  tree  of  life  in 
the  midst  of  the  garden  of  heaven.  Through  its  magical  power 
with  the  crossbar  representing  the  equator  it  proved  the 
rotundity  of  the  earth.  When  the  Aryans  arrived  on  the  shore 
of  the  Caspian  sea,  there  were  two  seas,  a  northern  and  southern 
sea.  A  low  ridge  of  he  Caucasus  mountains  divided  the  seas. 
There  was  a  highway  along  this  low  ridge  from  the  eastern 
side  of  the  Caspian  sea,  to  the  western  and  along  the  southern 
base  of  the  Caucasus  to  the  Black  sea.  The  Aryans  who  first 
emigrated  along  the  highway  to  the  Black  sea,  built  a  city  near 
the  latter  sea,  called  Colchis. 

At  that  time  the  river  Volga  flowed  into  the  sea  of  Azof  and 
the  Black  sea  was  not  connected  with  the  Mediterranean,  When 
the  mouth  of  the  Volga  was  turned  into  the  Caspian,  the  low 
ridge  of  the  Caucasus  which  divided  the  two  seas  was  eventually 
buried  by  the  great  body  of  water  pouring  into  the  upper 
Caspian.  Until  that  time,  the  highway  remained  open  for 
the  migration  of  Aryans  to  the  south  and  southwest.  The 
ancient  Greeks  migrated  from  Colchis  around  the  southern  side 
of  the  Black  sea  and  entered  Europe  before  Asia  Minor  was 
separated  from  Europe  by  the  opening  of  the  Bosphorus.  When 
the  story  of  Jason's  voyage  was  written,  the  writer  of  the  story 
had  heard  the  traditions  of  his  ancestors  who  came  from  Col- 
chis. Transformations  of  every  kind  were  believed  in  by  the 
writer,  that  is,  he  believed  that  such  things  had  occurred  to 


Man  and  the  Earth  6 1 

the  knowledge  of  his  ancestors  who  came  from  Colchis.  When 
the  Bosphorus  was  first  opened,  it  was  some  time  before  the 
channel  was  cut  by  the  force  of  the  water  deep  and  wide  enough 
to  prevent  the  overflow  of  the  Black  sea  through  the  volume 
of  water  carried  into  it  by  the  Volga. 

In  years  of  great  snow  and  rain  falls  in  the  north  at  such 
times,  the  low  lands  of  Greece  were  inundated.  There  are 
ancient  traditions  of  these  minor  floods,  as  well  as  the  deluge 
of  Deucalion.  When  the  people  of  many  nations  had  become 
somewhat  intelligent  in  a  general  way,  having  little  faith  in 
supernatural  occurrences  in  their  own  place,  the  great  respect 
they  had  for  their  ancestors  came  from  the  traditions  or  stories 
that  were  preserved  in  the  memory  of  the  old  people  relating 
to  supernatural  and  impossible  occurrences  of  every  descrip- 
tion. The  occurrences  were  of  such  a  wonderful  character  that 
the  ancestors  in  whose  days  they  occurred,  or  by  whom  many 
of  the  wonders  were  performed,  were  regarded  as  a  race  that 
was  partly  divine;  and  the  reason  that  such  occurrences  were 
not  observable  in  their  own  day  was  because  the  people  had 
lost  their  divine  character  through  sinfulness.  And  as  in  the 
olden  time,  every  village  with  a  little  land  attached  to  it  for 
farms  and  shepherds,  was  a  kingdom,  the  descendants  of  kings 
and  princes  were  plenty,  and  every  family  of  any  importance, 
could  trace  its  ancestors  back  to  a  king  or  prince.  It  was 
common  in  every  family  to  keep  a  record  of  all  their  children 
from  one  generation  to  another.  Some  of  these  records  were 
traced  back  to  the  time  of  the  first  ancestor  of  the  family  who 
was  a  god;  that  is  a  demigod.  After  him,  the  divine  blood 
kept  getting  thinner  and  thinner  until  it  was  all  lost  either  by 
common  sin  or  mixing  with  blood  that  contained  no  part  of 
the  divine  nature.  As  the  imaginings  of  the  most  primitive  races 
who  did  not  know  as  much  about  the  laws  of  nature  as  a  cat, 
were  believed  to  be  truths  infallible,  by  an  intellectual  race  of 
people  like  the  ancient  Greeks,  what  should  we  think  of  the 
superstitious  ignorance  of  the  great  mass  of  human  beings  who 
lived  four  thousand  years  ago? 

But  we  have  wandered  far  away  from  the  Atlantians  who 
had  reached  the  pinnacle  of  greatness,  glory,  wealth  and  cul- 
ture, throughout  the  world.  There  were  earthquakes  and  vol- 
canic eruptions  at  Atland.  Some  of  the  island  sunk.  The 


62  Modernism 

great  and  rich  fearing  for  their  wealth  and  lives  emigrated  to 
Egypt  where  a  colony  had  been  planted  as  stated  before.  Then 
came  the  last  great  cataclysm  burying  all  the  land  except  a  few 
mountains.  In  the  same  hour  the  Bosphorus  was  opened  by 
volcanic  action  and  the  water  of  the  Black  sea  rushing  on  in- 
undated Greece  and  Asia  Minor  causing  the  famous  deluge 
of  Deucalion,  as  we  have  described  before.  There  was  a  cave 
under  a  projecting  rock  near  the  ancient  city  of  Heliopolis  in 
Phrygia,  called  Plutonium,  from  which  at  all  times  emanated 
a  dark  vapor  deadly  to  man  and  beast.  It  was  called  the 
mouth  of  hell  at  a  later  time.  It  was  down  through  this 
cave  or  chasm  that  Pluto  carried  Proserpine.  Deucalion  noticed 
that  when  the  water  had  subsided  that  a  little  stream  was  run- 
ning into  this  chasm,  and  this  circumstance  led  him  to  believe 
that  all  the  water  that  poured  in  from  the  Black  sea  causing 
the  flood  had  gone  down  into  the  chasm.  There  was  a  tradi- 
tion that  Deucalion  built  a  temple  near  the  chasm  to  com- 
memorate the  flood  that  had  destroyed  a  large  number  of 
human  beings  in  his  own  day,  and  that  he  established  the  cus- 
tom of  carrying  sea  water  every  year  at  the  time  the  deluge 
occurred,  and  pouring  the  sea  water  into  the  chasm. 

The  aspiration  to  solve  the  mystery  of  creation  and  the 
phenomena  of  nature,  claimed  the  attention  still  of  all  the  seek- 
ers for  truth.  The  principle  on  which  man  had  from  the  begin- 
ning acknowledged  a  being  superior  to  himself,  was  that  the 
usefulness  of  that  being  to  him  could  not  be  dispensed  with. 
In  their  order  the  moon,  stars,  sun  and  fire  had  been  and  still 
were  his  good  demons.  He  now  advanced  a  step  further.  Medi- 
tating on  all  the  bearings  of  this  acknowledged  axiom,  the 
natural  philosopher  said  "  The  sun,  moon,  stars  and  fire  are 
gods  because  they  are  useful  to  man.  Such  being  the  acknowl- 
edged fact,  rivers,  mountains,  seas  and  many  other  natural 
objects  must  be  at  least,  lesser  gods."  This  opinion  was  in 
time  endorsed  and  a  place  was  given  to  it  in  the  theology  of 
the  seers.  Every  step  taken  in  the  search  for  truth,  extended 
the  vision  and  helped  to  widen  the  understanding  of  man. 
The  thinker  still  meditating,  with  the  knowledge  he  possessed, 
his  legends  lending  a  glimmer  of  the  evolution  of  the  gods, 
the  thought  came  to  him  "  May  not  each  of  the  gods  that  man 
has  been  worshipping  be  only  a  special  part  of  the  one  great 


Man  and  the  Earth  63 

God,  the  whole  universe  including  man? "  As  all  the  gods 
were  intelligent  beings  in  man's  conception,  throughout  the 
whole  earth,  with  no  exception  on  the  part  of  any  tribe  or  race, 
this  idea  of  god  was  not  intelligible  to  the  understanding  of  the 
great  multitude,  but  the  understanding  of  it  by  those  who  were 
educated  outside  of  the  priesthood,  made  it  their  business  to 
inculcate  the  doctrine  where  it  was  possible  to  do  so.  As  the 
mass  of  humanity  worshipped  only  the  gods  they  could  see 
or  feel,  the  teachers  of  the  new  doctrine  were  compelled  to 
provide  a  symbol  of  the  idea.  This  was  done  by  making  a 
wooden  figure  first  and  afterwards  a  stone  was  cut  by  a  sculptor 
which  represented  a  man  with  the  legs  and  feet  of  a  goat,  the 
upper  part  represented  man  and  the  gods,  physically  and  intel- 
lectually, and  the  legs  and  feet  represented  all  animal  life  and 
that  part  of  man's  nature  that  is  beastly. 

The  people  of  Greece  were  the  first  to  develop  this  idea 
of  God.  Man  being  part  of  the  divinity,  was  equal  with  the 
gods  that  had  been  worshipped.  His  physical  and  intellectual 
power  in  every  respect  manifested  in  a  small  degree  the  great 
physical  and  intellectual  power  manifest  in  the  existence  of 
the  universe.  And  man  being  equal  with  the  gods  must  ac- 
knowledge the  equality  of  all  men  who  are  citizens  of  the  state 
or  nation,  but  in  the  abstract  when  applied  to  those  who  are 
not  citizens.  That  was  as  far  as  they  could  go  in  a  political 
sense.  Therefore  disavowing  the  claim  of  any  one  to  rule 
by  divine  right,  they  established  republics.  The  symbolizing 
of  the  ideal  god,  made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  man  and 
beast,  to  represent  the  good  and  apparently  savage  proclivities 
of  nature  as  a  whole,  became  the  foundation  of  a  new  civiliza- 
tion. All  the  fine  arts  sprung  into  existence  as  if  created  by  the 
wand  of  a  magician.  Every  great  virtue  was  symbolized  in 
stone  in  the  image  of  a  woman.  The  poet,  philosopher,  orator, 
painter,  sculptor  and  mathematician,  were  emanations  of  the 
new  god.  The  knowledge  the  people  had  of  their  own  superi- 
ority over  the  rest  of  mankind,  produced  a  spirit  of  patriotism 
and  strategic  greatness  that  has  never  been  equaled  in  the 
history  of  mankind. 

If  this  conception  of  god  had  been  acceptable  to  the  great 
human  herd,  who  are  led  as  a  shepherd  leads  his  sheep,  the 
power  of  priestcraft  would  have  been  destroyed  forever.  But 


64  Modernism 

the  religious  customs  that  the  greater  part  of  the  human  race 
had  observed  for  thousands  of  years,  had  become  a  part  of 
the  life  of  nations.  Rivers,  mountains,  and  every  natural  object 
that  man  deemed  useful  to  him,  had  become  gods  only  inferior 
to  the  sun,  moon,  stars  and  fire.  The  sun  and  moon  being 
the  great  objects  or,  persons  whose  visible  existence  and  life 
through  their  great  usefulness  to  man  had  caused  the  estab- 
lishment of  most  of  the  customs  observed,  could  not  under 
these  circumstances  be  substituted  by  a  stone  image  which  was 
not  intended  to  be  an  object  of  worship,  but  an  object  of  wordy 
illustration.  As  all  the  religious  customs  were  meaningless  to 
the  intelligent  people  who  did  not  believe  that  the  sun  and 
moon  were  gods,  the  statue  of  Pan  was  intended  to  be  used 
by  the  teacher  as  an  illustration  in  a  discourse  or  lecture. 
It  was  the  discourse  that  they  intended  should  substitute  votive 
offerings,  sacrifices  and  religious  rites.  As  the  priests  were  the 
official  actors  and  beneficiaries  of  these  religious  customs  and 
rites,  it  could  not  be  expected  that  they  would  permit  the 
herds  to  be  induced  to  leave  their  shepherds  whose  position  in 
society  and  whose  emoluments  were  derived  from  their  official 
direction  and  action  in  connection  with  all  religious  customs 
and  rites.  Under  these  circumstances  the  laymen  who  were  the 
great  philosophers  of  Greece,  had  to  be  very  careful  about 
saying  anything  that  might  be  construed  as  a  disbelief  in  the 
gods  of  the  people. 

When  pantheism  was  first  introduced,  there  was  a  man  who 
was  versed  in  all  the  knowledge  of  his  age,  the  greatest  physician 
that  had  ever  lived.  In  his  system  of  practice,  he  eschewed 
all  the  old  methods  of  incantation,  charms,  exorcisms,  and  herbs 
that  contained  no  medicinal  properties.  He  discovered  an  anti- 
dote for  the  poison  of  serpents,  that  was  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant things  that  a  physician  could  discover  in  the  age  in 
which  he  lived.  All  over  the  earth  in  the  temperate  and  torrid 
zones,  reptiles  whose  bite  or  sting  was  fatal  to  man  and  beast 
were  very  numerous.  A  cure  for  the  bite  of  one  of  these 
venomous  reptiles  must  have  been  very  valuable  and  there  is 
a  tradition  that  JEsculapius  did  cure  such  bites  in  some  way. 
This  was  one  feature  of  his  skill  as  a  physician.  The  most 
essential  thing  for  a  physician  to  know  is  to  know  how  to 
diagnose  a  case  correctly,  this  is  where  the  skill  of  ^Esculapius 


Man  and  the  Earth  65 

was  famous.  There  were  in  his  day  people  of  great  importance 
as  there  are  in  our  own  day,  whose  sickness  is  mostly  of 
the  imagination,  nervous  people  are  the  victims  in  such  cases. 
His  treatment  in  cases  of  this  kind  was  to  give  the  patient 
some  simple  compound  that  every  physician  knew  would  help 
to  correct  any  local  disturbance,  and  while  he  had  the  patient 
in  charge  he  talked  him  into  the  belief  that  he  would  be  cured 
in  a  few  days,  as  he  really  had  no  sickness  other  than  that 
which  came  from  his  manner  of  living.  In  this  way  he  inspired 
the  depressed  hope  of  the  victim  by  eloquent  language.  In 
our  day  this  method  would  be  called  hypnotism  and  suggestion, 
and  that  is  what  it  was.  Those  who  were  opulent  and  those 
who  held  positions  of  dignity  and  honor,  were  his  patients  on 
account  of  his  fame,  and  it  was  his  skill  in  such  cases  that  made 
him  famous. 

The  fact  probably  that  he  was  born  under  the  constellation 
of  the  serpents,  might  be  nothing  more  than  a  coincidence,  from 
an  astrological  standpoint.  The  old  star-gazers  who  first 
mapped  out  the  heavens  did  not  name  the  constellation  Serpen- 
tarius  because  serpents  are  wise,  for  they  are  not  wise  in  any 
respect.  The  phrase  "As  wise  as  serpents  "  was  an  Eden  alle- 
gory. This  constellation  occupied  the  positions  in  the  heavens 
which  it  now  occupies  before  the  allegory  of  the  garden  of 
Eden  story  was  written.  It  is  likely  that  ^Esculapius  was  a 
physician  of  elder  Greece,  that  is  before  the  deucalion  flood. 
In  the  constellation  of  Serpentarius  there  is  a  small  cluster  of 
four  stars  that  resemble  the  Hyades,  the  solstitial  colure  passed 
through  the  equinoctial  at  that  point.  It  was  situated  in  the 
mid-heaven  equi  distant  from  the  poles  and  midway  between 
the  vernal  and  autumnal  equinoxes.  In  the  allegory  referred 
to,  this  was  the  tree  of  knowledge  in  the  midst  of  the  garden 
of  Eden.  That  is  the  first  fact,  the  second  is  where  it  says, 
"  The  serpent  was  more  subtile  than  any  beast  of  the  field 
which  the  Lord  God  had  made."  This  is  where  ^Esculapius 
is  referred  to.  Among  people  who  believed  in  transforma- 
tions there  was  a  tradition  that  ^sculapius  on  more  than  one 
occasion  had  changed  himself  into  a  serpent.  The  great  men 
who  lived  before  histories  were  written,  were  supposed  in  the 
historic  age  to  have  been  demi-gods,  therefore  ^sculapius  was 
worshipped  under  the  symbol  of  a  serpent.  In  the  excursions 


66  Modernism 

of  the  Atlantians  as  far  as  Greece,  they  heard  of  the  great  phy- 
sician, and  adopted  serpent  worship  as  a  part  of  their  religion. 
We  have  evidence  of  this  fact  from  the  traditions  of  the  Mandan 
Indians  who  are  descendants  of  the  vanguard  of  the  gibbon 
offsprings,  who  crossed  to  North  America  before  Europe  was 
separated  from  America.  The  Mandan  Indians  and  other  tribes 
who  are  connected  with  them,  have  traditions  of  a  race  of 
men  who  worshipped  a  serpent  and  that  these  men  went  down 
into  the  ground  to  dig  out  copper.  They  went  to  the  east 
and  never  came  back  again. 

They  have  many  other  traditions  about  these  snake  wor- 
shippers and  woodchuck  and  copper  diggers.  And  that  they 
dug  so  deep  that  they  went  down  into  the  ground  and  never 
came  up  again.  Some  writers  who  hold  an  exalted  position  in 
the  estimation  of  professional  astronomers,  imagine  no  doubt 
that  they  had  dug  very  deep  in  astronomic  lore  but  what  has 
been  stated  here  that  the  constellations  of  the  Zodiac  as  well 
as  the  majority  of  the  others  were  known,  named  and  num- 
bered long  before  Chaldea  had  any  existence.  The  civiliza- 
tion that  emanated  from  the  Pantheistic  conception  of  God  can 
claim  yEsculapius  as  its  first  physician.  Notwithstanding  that 
he  was  worshipped  as  a  demi-god,  there  was  nothing  religious 
in  his  method  of  practice.  Hippocrates  was  born  and  received 
the  rudiments  of  his  knowledge  under  the  shadow  of  a  temple 
dedicated  to  ^sculapius  in  the  island  of  Cos. 

The  sect  that  built  that  temple  emigrated  from  the  home  of 
^Esculapius,  and  if  there  had  not  been  some  member  of  the  sect 
who  was  able  to  demonstrate  the  system  and  method  of  the 
great  physician,  Hippocrates  would  not  have  been  a  scientific 
doctor.  After  the  offsprings  of  the  gibbons  had  ascended  the 
Indus  to  the  mountains,  the  offsprings  of  the  orang  gradually 
took  possession  of  the  whole  of  India,  and  in  time  they  filled  all 
the  land  with  their  progeny.  They  also  wandered  along  the 
shore  of  the  Pacific  until  they  could  go  no  farther  north  without 
clothing.  Shell  fish  in  this  part  of  the  world  must  have  been 
very  plenty  for  ages  as  the  ancient  Chinese  put  their  mouth 
down  into  the  shell  while  eating  for  so  great  a  period  of  time, 
that  their  habit  of  eating  in  this  manner  for  so  many  years, 
produced  that  peculiar  slanting  shape  of  the  eye  that  it  will 
require  many  years  of  a  changed  habit  of  eating  to  destroy  this 


Man  and  Hie  Earth  67 

race  feature  of  the  Chinese.  The  offsprings  of  the  gibbon  that 
had  remained  near  the  north  end  of  the  Persian  gulf  began 
to  ascend  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  where  they  soon  began  to 
domesticate  all  kinds  of  cattle  that  had  been  driven  south  during 
the  glacial  epoch.  The  same  thing  occurred  to  those  who  had 
ascended  the  valley  of  the  Dead  sea.  In  consequence  of  the 
great  heat  that  then  prevailed  throughout  all  that  region,  the 
people  did  not  give  up  moon  worship  until  they  reached  the 
mountain  ranges.  In  Arabia  and  in  the  valley  of  the  Dead  sea 
the  system  of  sun  worship  that  prevailed  for  a  long  time  did 
not  spring  from  a  love  of  that  great  natural  object.  The  sun 
had  still  nearly  all  the  dread  features  of  Saturn  with  these 
people,  therefore  in  place  of  votive  offerings  which  was  the 
main  feature  of  moon  worship,  they  now  propitiated  the  sun 
with  sacrifices  to  try  to  make  it  more  benignant  than  it  was, 
but  their  votive  offerings  were  still  to  the  moon.  All  good 
actions  were  performed  through  fear  of  the  Lord.  But  it  was 
a  long  time  before  they  gave  up  moon  worship,  even  when 
they  began  to  till  the  soil.  In  the  course  of  time  many  of  the 
young  sun  worshippers  fell  in  love  with  the  young  maidens 
whose  fathers  were  moon  worshippers;  and  they  married  them. 
These  marriages  had  occurred  very  frequently.  The  tradition 
of  these  marriages  comes  from  the  sun  worshippers,  who  are 
called  the  sons  of  God.  The  maidens  are  the  daughters  of  men, 
that  is;  the  daughters  of  moon  worshippers.  It  should  have 
been  written :  "  The  sons  of  the  sun  saw  the  daughters  of  the 
moon  that  they  were  fair,  and  they  took  them  wives  of  all  which 
they  chose."  It  was  the  sons  of  the  shepherds  who  married  the 
daughters  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil.  These  two  professions  had 
a  very  old  prejudice  against  each  other.  The  priests  did  not 
consider  that  vegetables,  grain,  and  fruit,  were  as  good  as  the 
meat  of  cattle,  sheep  or  young  lambs,  we  see  that  in  the  alle- 
gory of  Cain  and  Abel.  However  in  the  most  ancient  tradi- 
tions of  western  Asia  at  the  north  of  the  Persian  gulf,  we  see 
that  the  mixture  of  these  two  professions  through  marriage 
was  very  common.  This  condition  of  things  continued  for  a 
long  time,  but  it  seems  that  a  time  came  when  some  tribes 
through  obedience  to  their  priests,  or  through  the  prejudice  of 
a  few  tribes  of  shepherds  against  the  farmers,  that  these  tribes 
of  shepherds  ceased  to  associate  with  the  farmers.  These 


68      .  Modernism 

shepherds  were  the  forefathers  of  the  Jews,  the  ancient  literature 
of  the  Jewish  people  demonstrates  the  fact  that  they  originally 
propitiated  the  malignant  features  of  the  sun  or  Saturn,  under 
the  name  of  El,  which  in  time  became  Yahvah  and  Jehovah. 

The  greatest  blessing  that  could  fall  to  the  lot  of  a  half 
civilized  people  happened  to  the  Jews  when  they  were  car- 
ried off  to  Babylonia.  While  their  captivity  lasted  their  priests 
had  an  opportunity  to  receive  an  education  which  they  could 
never  have  got  in  Judea.  There  is  one  thing  that  the  Jewish 
Bible  is  valuable  for,  it  has  preserved  the  names  and  localities 
of  many  places  in  western  Asia  that  we  cannot  find  elsewhere. 
There  were  many  books  of  a  similar  kind  that  had  a  place  in 
the  great  library  that  had  been  collected  at  Alexandria.  The 
destruction  of  that  library,  was  one  of  the  greatest  losses 
that  mankind  ever  sustained.  Therefore  the  preservation  of  this 
old  book  by  the  Jews  from  the  general  destruction  of  ancient 
literature,  makes  it  a  valuable  classic,  but  those  who  hold  that 
the  words  in  this  old  book  were  dictated  by  the  creator  of  the 
universe  are  doing  exactly  what  some  of  the  superficially  edu- 
cated writers  of  two  thousand  years  ago  did  in  writing  their 
so-called  histories.  After  the  destruction  of  the  Alexandrian 
library,  the  knowledge  contained  in  the  Assyrian,  Chaldean  and 
Egyptian  histories,  was  lost  to  the  world  save  such  fragments 
of  Sanchoniathon,  Berosus,  Manetho,  and  a  few  others  that 
were  scattered  through  the  works  of  Christian  writers  prin- 
cipally. But  the  doubt  that  had  existed  for  many  years  about 
the  veracity  of  these  old  Pagan  writers,  is  gradually  being 
cleared  up  by  the  investigation  of  modern  archeologists. 

In  an  attempt  to  review  the  fragments  of  the  history  of  Ber- 
osus, we  will  not  go  to  any  length,  as  the  archeological  work 
now  being  carried  on  among  the  ruins  of  Assyria,  will  reveal 
many  of  the  great  mysteries  of  Assyria  and  Chaldea.  As  the 
only  thing  that  has  puzzled  the  students  of  Berosus  is  his 
chronologies,  we  might  remark  that  it  is  probable  that  his 
Christian  interpreters  have  not  correctly  quoted  his  figures 
regarding  the  ages  of  the  ten  antediluvian  kings,  and  some  of 
those  who  were  the  successors  of  Onnes.  The  Jewish  Bible 
chronology  of  the  ten  ancient  kings  of  Assyria,  was  obtained 
by  the  Jewish  priests  during  their  captivity,  from  the  priests 
of  Assyria,  when  all  of  the  libraries  were  in  a  perfect  condi- 


Man  and  the  Earth  69 

tion.  And  as  the  age  of  all  things  at  that  time  was  reckoned 
by  the  moon  those  antediluvian  kings  did  not  on  the  average 
live  to  the  age  of  seventy  years.  When  you  note  the  difference 
between  twenty-seven  and  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days, 
you  can  see  that  the  antediluvians  did  not  live  to  so  very  great 
an  age  after  all.  But  it  is  evident  that  Berosus,  used  the  oldest 
style  of  reckoning  time  in  computing  the  ages  of  the  ten 
ancients  and  some  others.  The  oldest  style  of  reckoning  time 
was  by  the  increasing  and  decreasing  moon.  Each  of  these 
was  a  year*  so  that  every  moon  was  reckoned  as  two  years. 
It  seems  that  it  was  the  oldest  style  that  Berosus  applied  to 
the  ancients. 

There  was  another  style  that  some  shepherd  tribes  used  for 
a  short  time.  In  this,  the  heavens  were  divided  into  four  equal 
parts,  commencing  when  the  sun  entered  the  first  point  of  the 
constellation  of  the  ram.  Three  months  constituted  the  year. 
The  system  that  some  of  the  agriculturalists  first  used,  was  the 
division  of  the  year  into  two  parts,  summer  and  winter,  each 
constituting  a  year.  The  fact  is,  that  very  few  men  who  held 
positions  of  responsibility  in  ancient  times,  reached  the  age  of 
seventy  years.  It  is  now  understood  that  Sanchoniathon  lived 
about  twelve  hundred  years  before  our  era.  Sanchoniathon 
states,  according  to  some  of  the  fragments  we  have  of  his 
history,  that  Phoenicia,  was  founded  by  a  son  of  Autochthon. 
Plato  says,  Autochthon  or  some  such  name  was  one  of  the  kings 
of  Atland.  He  calls  Atland,  Atlantis,  but  that  is  only  a  mis- 
take of  his  memory.  Long  before  Pythagoras  came  to  Cro- 
tona,  fire  had  been  a  sacred  element  throughout  large  regions 
of  the  earth,  so  that,  in  his  system  of  astronomy,  where  he 
makes  the  hearth  of  the  universe,  the  centre  around  which  the 
sun  and  all  the  planets  revolve,  he  did  not  then  introduce  any- 
thing new  as  far  as  the  fire  behind  the  earth  was  concerned, 
for  fire  had  been  regarded  the  supreme  god  by  the  Aryan  priests 
in  every  part  of  the  world  where  any  of  them  were  performing 
their  sacred  mysteries.  Pythagoras  was  dead  about  a  hundred 
years  before  Plato  had  heard  about  Atland.  In  his  system 
of  astronomy  Pythagoras  makes  the  Autochthon  perform  a 
very  important  part.  The  central  point  was  fire  called  the 
Hearth  of  the  Universe,  which  has  been  referred  to  before 

*  A  distinct  period  of  time. 


70  Modernism 

(like  the  public  hearth  of  perpetual  fire  maintained  in  the 
prytaneum  of  a  Grecian  city)  or  the  watch  tower  of  Zeus. 
Around  it  revolved  from  west  to  east,  ten  divine  bodies  with 
equal  velocities,  but  in  symmetrical  movement  or  regular  dance. 
Outermost  was  the  circle  of  fixed  stars,  called  Olympus,  and 
composed  of  fire  like  the  center.  Within  this  came  successively, 
with  orbits  more  and  more  approximating  to  the  center,  the  five 
planets,  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Mars,  Venus  and  Mercury:  next,  the 
sun,  moon,  and  the  earth.  Lastly,  betwen  the  earth  and  the 
central  fire,  the  Autochthon  or  counter  earth.  Making  a  total 
represented  by  the  sacred  number  ten,  the  symbol  of  perfec- 
tion and  totality. 

The  sun  was  not  self-luminous,  it  was  conceived  as  a  glassy 
disk,  receiving  its  light  from  the  central  fire  and  reflecting  it 
upon  the  earth,  so  long  as  the  two  were  on  the  same  side  of 
the  central  fire.  The  earth  revolved  in  an  orbit  obliquely  in- 
tersecting that  of  the  sun,  and  in  twenty-four  hours,  round  the 
central  fire,  always  turning  the  same  side  towards  that  fire, 
the  alteration  of  day  and  night  was  occasioned  by  the  earth, 
being  during  a  part  of  its  revolution,  on  the  same  side  of  the 
central  fire  with  the  sun,  and  thus  receiving  light  reflected  from 
him  and  during  the  remaining  part  of  her  revolution  on  the 
opposite  side  of  him,  so  that  she  received  no  light  at  all  from 
him.  The  earth  with  the  autochthon  made  this  revolution  in 
one  day,  the  moon  in  one  month;  the  sun,  with  the  planets 
Mercury  and  Venus,  in  one  year;  the  planets  Mars,  Jupiter  and 
Saturn,  in  longer  periods  respectively,  according  to  their  dis- 
tances from  the  center;  lastly,  the  outermost  circle  of  the  fixed 
stars  (the  Olympus)  in  some  unknown  period  of  very  long 
duration.  He  also  imagined  that  in  the  rotatory  movement  of 
the  sun  and  all  the  heavenly  bodies,  that  they  gave  out  celestial 
music,  called  "  The  Music  of  the  Spheres."  The  counter  earth 
or  the  autochthon  of  Pythagoras,  in  his  system  of  astronomy, 
seems  to  have  been  a  misconception.  It  is  generally  believed 
that  Pythagoras  spent  some  time  in  Egypt,  as  it  was  there  that 
many  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  scholars  went  to  finish  their 
education. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  he  did  not  get  the  idea  there  that  the 
sun  is  not  a  self-luminous  body.  The  Hearth  of  the  universe 
was  a  religious  conception,  it  was  an  Aryan  idea  originally, 


Man  and  the  Earth  71 

but  it  was  in  the  mythic  mysteries  of  Persia,  that  it  was  fully 
developed,  and  from  there  it  passed  to  Greece  and  all  the  rest 
of  Europe  and  Asia  Minor;  but  the  sun  as  the  great  self-lumin- 
ous god  was  still  worshipped  by  the  people  in  its  majestic 
strength  or  in  allegory  by  the  priests.  It  is  quite  certain 
however  that  Pythagoras  got  his  idea  of  the  autochthon  either 
in  Egypt  or  Phoenicia,  for  it  represents  either  Atland  or  the 
American  continent.  It  is  a  fact  that  many  philosophers  be- 
lieved that  the  earth  was  globular  in  shape,  and  if  that  belief 
had  not  been  proved  to  be  a  fact,  Copernicus  would  never  have 
been  known.  Columbus  did  not  have  the  smallest  conception 
of  the  extent  of  the  American  continent.  His  introduction  of 
the  institution  of  slavery  as  one  of  his  first  acts  as  governor 
over  people  who  had  treated  him  with  the  greatest  kindness, 
will  ever  offset  his  good  work;  and  the  punishment  he  received 
through  the  enmity  of  others,  was  no  more  than  he  deserved 
for  that  ignoble  act.  Although  it  would  follow  in  time,  yet  the 
honor  and  glory  of  demonstrating  the  fact  that  the  earth  is 
a  globe  in  shape,  goes  to  that  intrepid,  resolute  and  immortal 
sailor  Magellan.  Before  Pythagoras,  Thales  had  learned  from 
the  Phoenicians,  that  the  earth  is  a  sphere,  that  the  moon's 
light  is  reflected  from  the  sun,  that  the  stars  are  fire,  that  the 
equator  is  cut  obliquely  by  the  ecliptic,  and  perpendicularly  by 
the  meridian.  And  he  determined  the  position  of  the  stars 
from  the  lesser  bear  by  which  the  Phoenicians  guided  their 
ships.  But  modern  writers  say,  that  "  It  is  difficult  to  conceive 
how  Thales  unacquainted  with  instruments  could  render  any 
assistance  to  navigators."  The  great  mistake  is  believing  that 
the  Phoenicians  had  no  instruments.  If  the  original  copy  of 
Sanchoniathon's  history  had  been  preserved,  we  would  have 
known  something  more  than  we  now  know  about  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Phoenicians.  It  is  claimed  also  that  navigators 
in  their  voyages  never  lost  sight  of  the  land.  To  some  extent 
this  was  true  for  some  time  after  Assyria  had  utterly  destroyed 
the  Phoenicians,  for  the  few  ship  owners  who  preserved  their 
vessels  after  that  calamity  became  pirates.  After  tin  had  been 
discovered  in  Europe  and  Asia  there  was  no  inducement  to 
navigators  to  go  outside  of  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar.  This  con- 
dition of  things  lasted  so  long  that  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  earth 
became  wrapped  in  mystery.  In  fact  that  ocean  became  a  myth 


7  2  Modernism 

to  the  Greeks.  Pytheas  of  Marseilles,  an  astronomer  and 
geographer  about  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  took  several 
voyages  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  geographical  and  astro- 
nomical information.  He  went  as  far  north  as  Iceland,  and 
wrote  a  book  giving  a  full  account  of  all  his  travels  and  the 
discoveries  he  made,  but  Strabo,  a  Greek  historian  and  geogra- 
pher, who  wrote  a  few  years  before  the  beginning  of  our  era, 
and  was  considered  in  his  time  a  great  historian  and  geographer, 
treated  the  accounts  of  Pytheas  as  fabulous,  yet  nearly  every- 
thing that  Pytheas  wrote  is  true,  and  the  map  of  the  earth 
drawn  from  the  accounts  of  Strabo,  is  the  worst  that  has  ever 
been  described.  A  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Strabo,  in 
Alexandria,  Ptolemy,  had  made  a  map  of  the  earth  which  was 
superior  to  Strabo's,  and  became  responsible  for  a  system  of 
astronomy  in  which  the  earth  is  a  sphere. 

When  Homer  wrote,  he  had  heard  of  pygmies  in  Africa  and 
several  islands  in  the  Atlantic  ocean.  So  that,  the  farther  we 
go  back  before  our  era,  the  writers  seem  to  have  had  a  better 
knowledge  of  the  Atlantic  ocean  than  those  who  wrote  near  the 
time  of  Strabo.  It  is  evident  that  ships  could  not  traverse  the 
Atlantic  up  to  Iceland  as  they  did  in  ancient  times,  without  a 
compass.  The  early  Greeks  got  their  knowledge  of  geography 
and  astronomy  from  Egypt  and  Phoenicia,  and  the  ancestors 
of  the  Phoenicians  would  not  have  dared  to  venture  their  lives 
on  the  Atlantic  if  they  had  not  previously  sailed  and  oared 
boats  on  an  inland  sea  like  the  Caspian.  Egypt,  Phoenicia  and 
Etruria,*  were  colonized  by  people  who  had  reached  a  higher 
state  of  civilization,  in  many  respects,  than  the  people  of  any 
other  country.  It  seems  reasonable  to  believe  that  the  people 
who  colonized  these  three  countries,  came  from  Atland.  And 
although  the  memory  of  that  island  would  have  been  lost  to 
the  world  if  some  serious  man  like  Plato  had  not  written  about 
it,  still  we  know  that  the  civilization  of  those  countries  were 
not  developed  from  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  either  of  them, 
as  no  great  civilization  has  ever  been  developed  from  the  orig- 
inal inhabitants  of  any  country. 


*  According  to  Sanchoniathon,  one  of  the  earliest  traditions  of  the 
Phoenicians  was  that  their  ancestors  came  to  Phoenicia  on  account  of 
their  original  home  being  destroyed  by  an  earthquake. 


Man  and  the  Earth  73 

When  At  and  his  brothers  departed  from  the  Caspian  sea, 
the  Sanscrit  language  had  not  become  a  written  language.  The 
Esthonians  came  from  some  of  the  people  that  remained  near 
the  Baltic,  to  eat  shell  fish  rather  than  follow  their  friends 
out  on  the  western  island  with  At.  Their  speech  indicates 
about  how  far  the  Sanscrit  had  developed  when  the  rebellion 
of  At  occurred.  It  required  just  such  a  resolute,  intelligent 
man  to  lay  the  foundation  of  the  first  commercial  civilization 
that  the  earth  knew.*  Before  an  attempt  was  made  to  measure 
any  portion  of  the  surface  of  the  earth,  taking  the  sea  level 
as  a  basis,  there  must  have  been  old  traditions  of  a  western 
continent  to  suggest  it.  It  was  those  traditions  that  suggested 
to  Ptolemy's  astronomers  the  globular  shape  of  the  earth,  and 
not  the  talk  of  Pythagoras.  The  attempt  to  measure  a  portion 
of  the  earth's  surface  was  projected  for  the  purpose  of  verifying 
the  basic  principles  of  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy  and 
geography. 

As  all  of  the  very  ancient  people  did  not  have  the  same  ex- 
perience in  their  development,  some  phases  of  their  observations 
received  much  more  attention  in  one  place  or  locality  than  in 
others.  When  the  moon  had  become  their  sky  Ma,  the  stars 
soon  became  her  little  children,  and  eventually  the  watching 
and  talking  about  the  stars  developed  that  phase  of  religion 
called  Sabism.  In  the  valleys  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris, 
this  seems  to  have  received  a  more  lasting  impression  than 
in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  It  was  observed  that  the 
planets  did  not  remain  in  the  same  part  of  the  sky  all  the  time 
as  the  stars  did,  and  they  therefore  called  them  wanderers,  as 
they  seemed  to  wander  about  from  one  place  to  another.  In 
time  the  most  brilliant  stars  received  names  that  seemed  to 
people  appropriate.  All  the  stars  little  and  big  were  living 
beings,  and  as  only  a  small  number  of  them  were  named,  or 
their  localities  noted,  when  meteors  were  observed  to  move  or 
fly  from  one  part  of  the  sky  to  another,  they  thought  that  these 
meteors  were  some  of  the  unnoted  and  unnamed  stars  that  were 
acting  as  messengers  from  some  of  the  greater  personages  of 
the  sky  to  each  other,  therefore  the  name  messenger  or  angel 

*It  was  the  nobility  and  most  wealthy  of  the  emigrants  from  Atland 
that  went  to  Egypt,  the  enterprising  shippers  and  mechanics  went  to 
Phoenicia,  Tyre,  Sidon  and  other  places. 


74  Modernism 

was  given  to  them.  The  most  brilliant  star  in  each  of  the  con- 
stellations of  the  Zodiac  was  called  an  angel  at  a  later  time. 
At  a  still  later  time,  when  it  was  forgotten  why  meteors  were 
called  angels,  all  the  stars  were  called  angels;  and  when  the 
stars  were  divided  into  constellations,  each  constellation  took 
the  name  that  had  been  given  to  the  most  brilliant  star  in  the 
new  constellation.  By  this  means  the  heaven  was  peopled 
with  a  host  of  angels  which  were  divided  into  classes,  called 
angels,  archangels,  cherubims  and  seraphims.  All  these  beings 
constituted  the  host  of  heaven  and  were  supposed  to  be  only  a 
little  lower  than  the  sun  and  moon,  the  supreme  gods  of  day 
and  night.  Eventually  when  the  fact  had  been  forgotten  that 
these  angelic  names  referred  to  stars  and  constellations,  in  those 
regions  of  the  earth  where  the  people  were  not  star-gazers,  and 
where  they  slept  through  the  night,  it  was  supposed  that  these 
angels,  archangels,  cherubims  and  seraphims  were  a  class  of 
beings  who  existed  and  had  their  home  in  the  unseeable  part  of 
heaven  where  the  unseeable  God  resided,  and  that  some  of 
them  on  certain  occasions  visited  the  earth  as  messengers  from 
the  unseeable  God.  In  the  Chaldean  religion  the  Angel  Gabriel 
was  the  angel  of  spring.  When  the  Jews  were  captives  in 
Babylonia,  their  priests  adopted  a  part  of  the  Chaldean  system 
of  astrology  and  thereby  gave  a  place  to  angels  of  all  classes 
in  their  religion.  As  the  Christian  religion  is  a  mixture  of  the 
Jewish  and  Pagan  religions,  the  angels  found  a  home  in  our 
religion  also  quite  naturally.  It  was  during  the  prevalence  of 
Sabism,  that  several  nations  adopted  some  of  the  stars  or  planets 
in  their  astrology  as  the  fathers  of  their  nations.  The  Phoeni- 
cian name  for  the  planet  Saturn  was  Israel. 

When  that  nation  conquered  a  large  part  of  what  we  now 
call  Palestine,  they  gave  this  name  to  the  whole  country;  hence 
the  name  Israelite,  after  Jacob's  name  had  been  changed.  The 
Aryans  seem  to  have  had  the  greatest  advantages  of  any  people 
we  have  any  positive  knowledge  of.  Their  knowledge  of  astron- 
omy was  superior  to  that  of  any  other  people,  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  they  were  the  first  discoverers  of  the  cycle 
of  eclipses.  Although  there  must  have  been  some  knowledge 
which  did  not  extend  to  so  long  a  period  as  nineteen  years, 
which  helped  them  to  predict  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  or  sun, 
but  more  especially  the  moon,  some  little  time  before  it  oc- 


Man  and  the  Earth  75 

curred.  But  when  it  was  ascertained  beyond  any  possible  doubt, 
that  the  eclipses  of  the  sun  and  moon  repeated  themselves  every 
nineteen  years,  they  were  in  a  position — that  is,  the  priests  of 
ancient  India — to  exalt  themselves  above  the  common  people 
so  high,  that  they  must  have  been  regarded  as  at  least  demi-gods. 
Now  think  of  the  horror  with  which  an  eclipse  of  the  moon 
was  regarded  where  people  had  not  the  smallest  conception 
of  what  was  the  cause  of  it,  but  believing  now,  as  the  priest 
was  able  to  tell  beforehand  when  it  would  occur,  that  the  priest 
had  brought  it  about  by  witchcraft,  and  that  he  could  do  it 
at  any  time  he  saw  fit  to  exercise  his  power.  What  a  lever 
this  was  in  the  hands  of  an  impostor  to  elevate  himself  in  the 
mind  of  the  poor  ignorant,  superstitious  human  biped.  It  was 
a  long  time  before  the  knowledge  spread  to  every  part  of  the 
partially  civilized  world,  but  it  eventually  was  discovered  by 
those  who  did  not  use  the  knowledge  for  such  a  debasing  pur- 
pose. However,  the  seers  and  priests  of  western  Asia,  Egypt, 
and  eastern  Europe,  were  always  in  communication  with  the 
priests  and  seers  of  India,  and  they  made  the  same  use  of  their 
knowledge  of  the  cycle  of  eclipses,  as  did  the  priests  of  India. 
Although  it  is  certain  that  Thales  was  familiar  with  the  cycle 
of  eclipses,  "  yet  a  century  later  the  Greek  priests  caused  Anaxa- 
goras  to  be  thrown  into  prison  for  daring  to  make  his  knowledge 
known  on  these  periods  of  eclipses."  Advanced  as  Greece  was 
in  some  respects,  still  the  priests  who  should  have  warned  the 
Greek  army  of  the  eclipse  which  occurred  while  it  was  before 
Syracuse,  and  caused  its  defeat,  were  not  held  responsible  for 
the  disaster.  Having  a  monopoly  of  the  science,  no  layman 
was  allowed  to  reveal  his  knowledge  of  the  subject.  Anaxa- 
goras  was  dead,  and  as  only  a  few  persons  had  his  treatise  in 
their  hands  they  dare  not  speak  about  it,  even  if  they  had 
thought  about  it  at  the  time.  Five  centuries  later,  Pliny  wrote 
in  his  natural  history:  "It  is  long  since  the  means  was  dis- 
covered of  calculating  beforehand  not  merely  the  day  or  night, 
but  even  the  very  hour  at  which  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  or  moon 
is  to  take  place,  yet  the  majority  of  the  lower  orders  still  remain 
firmly  convinced  that  these  phenomena  are  brought  about  by 
enchantment." 

The  Brahmins  of  India  made  this  cycle,  the  pivot  on  which 
the  birth,  prosperity  and  destruction  of  the  earth  hung.     The 


76  Modernism 

divine  year  consists  of  six  hundred  and  fifty-eight  years,  there- 
fore the  lifetime  of  the  world  will  consist  of  as  many  years  as 
there  are  months  in  the  divine  year;  that  is,  six  thousand  five 
hundred  and  eighty-five  years,  one  hundred  and  twenty  days. 
At  the  end  of  this  period  the  human  race  will  be  brought  to 
judgment,  and  the  world  will  be  destroyed  by  fire. 

Preposterous  and  nonsensical  as  the  whole  system  is  from 
beginning  to  end,  yet  every  nation  and  every  religion,  Brah- 
minism,  Buddhism,  Judaism  and  Christianity,  made  it  a  part  of 
its  prophetic  declaration.  This  merely  shows  how  mankind 
has  been  imposed  upon  by  a  lot  of  jugglers,  fakirs  and  im- 
posters.  The  time  they  set  for  the  end  of  the  world,  was  about 
the  time  when  the  Christian  gospel  and  epistle  writers  were 
warning  the  people  that  it  might  occur  any  night  or  day.  But 
the  Indian  seers  finding  that  it  did  not  come  off,  made  a  new 
declaration  placing  themselves  in  harmony  with  the  western 
incarnation  of  Augustus,  whose  prophets  promised  a  period  of 
peace  and  good  will  among  men  and  nations.  This  postponed 
the  dreadful  day  to  a  thousand  years  more,  and  this  prediction 
was  believed  by  the  dupes  in  the  western  world.  India  has 
been  the  birthplace  of  all  the  religious  tidal  waves  that  have 
swept  over  the  whole  habitable  earth.  All  the  rites,  ceremonies, 
sacraments  and  doctrines,  except  circumcision  (which  was  born 
in  Atland),  originated  in  India,  and  were  carried  to  every  part 
of  the  earth  east  and  west.* 

As  the  magician  is  always  trying  to  invent  new  tricks  to  keep 
himself  busy,  so  the  Indian  seer  for  thousands  of  years  has 
been  exercising  his  mind  with  religious  problems.  But  no  idea 
that  has  ever  been  evolved  from  the  brain  of  man  has  had  such 
influence  as  the  invention  of  the  Avatar  doctrine.  The  Avatar 
doctrine  was  promulgated  by  the  Brahmins  of  India  who  evi- 
dently had  kept  a  record  of  the  events  that  had  transpired  in 
their  own  country.  Consulting  the  record  of  past  events,  it 
appeared  to  them  that  at  the  end  of  every  six  hundred  years 
or  thereabout,  that  important  changes  occurred  in  their  affairs, 
and  that  in  some  instances  these  changes  were  brought  about 
largely  by  some  man.  Now  using  the  cycle  of  eclipses,  they 
applied  it  to  this  number  of  years,  and  they  ascertained  that 

*Sabianism  may  have  had  its  rise  in  India,  and  was  afterwards  more 
fully  developed  in  the  valleys  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates. 


Man  and  the  Earth  77 

by  taking  as  many  months  as  there  were  days  in  the  cycle  of 
eclipses,  that  it  would  give  them  six  hundred  and  fifty-eight 
years.  Using  this  result  as  a  basis,  they  called  it  a  divine  year, 
at  the  end  of  which  important  changes  would  be  brought  about. 
To  give  the  divine  year  a  proper  send  off,  they  declared  that 
the  second  person  of  their  Trinity  had  been  and  would  continue 
to  be  incarnated  every  six  hundred  and  fifty-eight  years  in  the 
womb  of  a  virgin  for  the  purpose  of  saving  and  redeeming  the 
world  from  sin.  This  doctrine  eventually  spread  throughout 
the  whole  earth  into  every  country.  It  was  declared  that  all 
of  the  changes  in  human  affairs  that  were  brought  about  by 
these  Avatars,  were  of  great  benefit  to  mankind. 

India,  Persia,  Arabia,  Chaldea,  Assyria,  and  Egypt,  each  of 
these  nations  had  had  its  Avatars.  The  life  history  of  these 
Avatars  indicate  that  they  were  in  most  respects  personifica- 
tions of  the  sun.  While  the  biographies  of  all  of  them  were 
more  or  less  imitations  of  the  first  one,  yet  each  one  had  some 
special  trait  of  character  that  had  not  been  spoken  of  in  any 
of  the  others,  in  each  case  there  was  a  man  who  seemed  to 
represent  this  special  part,  who  had  done  something  either  as 
a  physical  or  mental  hero  to  entitle  him  to  be  recognized  and 
stand  as  a  nominal  but  not  a  real  manifestor.  The  real  mani- 
festor  in  every  case  was  an  eclectic  character.  He  was  manu- 
factured by  a  college  or  counsel  of  priests  who  used  as  much 
of  his  history  as  they  thought  judicious,  and  his  real  name  if 
it  helped  to  develop  the  system  of  ethics  and  theology,  or  the 
civic  revolution  which  they  favored. 

Outside  of  these,  the  old  allegories  and  the  old  and  new 
philosophy  and  ethics  were  written  as  descriptive  of  the  new  in- 
carnation's words  and  actions.  Each  incarnation  who  personi- 
fied the  sun,  was  born  when  the  sun  was  in  its  winter  solstice, 
on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December,  called  Christmas  day,  of  the 
Virgin  of  the  Zodiac,  in  the  stable  of  Argus,  in  the  cave  in 
which  the  moon  was  born.  These  places  are  all  up  in  the  sky, 
where  also  is  the  manger  in  which  the  newborn  god  was  laid. 
And  so  in  like  manner  are  all  the  other  localities  in  which  the 
sun  as  a  god  had  been  represented  in  the  old  systems  to  have 
had  special  experiences.  Before  proceeding  further,  it  should 
be  understood  that  the  Indian  philosophers  did  not  control  the 
predictions  of  the  seers  of  Egypt  and  some  of  the  western 


78  Modernism 

nations,  the  sibyls  and  astrologers  of  the  western  part  of  the 
then  known  world,  predicted  that  at  about  the  time  of  the  be- 
ginning of  our  era,  that  a  period  of  peace  and  justice  would 
be  ushered  in  that  would  reign  a  thousand  years.*  The  Indian 
prediction  was  that  the  world  would  come  to  an  end  about  that 
time.  After  the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great,  who  died  three 
hundred  twenty-three  years  before  the  beginning  of  our  era,  the 
governorship  of  Egypt  and  a  part  of  what  is  now  called  Pales- 
tine, was  secured  by  Ptolemy  Soter,  who  having  suppressed 
a  revolt  in  Judea,  had  removed  from  that  country  a  large  body 
of  its  inhabitants  to  people  the  new  city  of  Alexandria  which 
had  been  laid  out  by  the  great  conqueror.  The  city  had  already 
been  colonized  by  a  large  number  of  Greek  families  and  it  was 
in  a  flourishing  condition. 

Plato  having  written  on  so  many  subjects  that  his  books 
formed  a  sort  of  encyclopedia,  in  a  limited  degree,  his  books 
were  consulted  on  every  question  that  arose  among  the  Greeks, 
particularly  on  questions  of  speculative  philosophy.  As  he  had 
received  from  some  of  the  Egyptian  priests  during  one  of  his 
visits  to  Egypt,  an  insight  into  the  Avatar  doctrine,  without 
referring  to  this  doctrine  as  a  basis  on  which  to  build  a  new 
religion,  he  simply  suggested  the  propriety  of  a  number  of 
well  informed  and  well  disposed  men  getting  together  and  when 
they  had  selected  the  best  precepts  known  to  man  from  all  the 
older  religions,  and  philosophies,  to  establish  an  eclectic  code 
of  morals,  and  build  a  new  religion  which  would  contain  such 
things  as  were  generally  known  to  be  the  truth  as  near  as 
possible,  and  then  declare  it  to  be  infallible  and  enforce  its 
observance  by  law  throughout  the  land.  If  there  should  happen 
to  be  some  of  its  philosophy  untrue,  yet  because  of  its  efficacy 
in  producing  social  order  and  morality,  it  would  be  right  to 
maintain  such  a  religion  as  the  only  true  one  until  a  better  one 
had  been  discovered.f 


^Augustus  was  the  Messiah  of  the  western  prophets  who  ushered  in  a 
period  of  peace  and  good  will  to  all  mankind.  The  eastern  prophecy 
was  that  the  world  would  come  to  an  end. 

fPlato  having  examined  the  history  and  the  basis  on  which  all  the 
religious  systems  existed  in  his  day,  concluded  that  there  was  no  truth 
in  the  divine  pretentions  of  any  of  them,  that  religion  was  mostly  super- 
stition, and  the  only  way  that  it  was  possible  to  have  a  religion  of  any 
value,  was  to  have  one  established  by  a  council  of  wise  men. 


Man  and  the  Earth  7  9 

So  Ptolemy,  believing  that  any  time  would  be  a  proper  time 
for  organizing  a  religious  system  of  this  kind,  built  a  large 
temple  called  the  Grand  Serapion,  and  the  statue  of  Serapis 
which  the  king  brought  from  Sinope,  was  deposited  in  the 
temple.  It  was  said  that  the  king  performed  all  this  work  in 
obedience  to  a  revelation.  He  established  an  eclectic  religion 
for  the  mixed  population  of  Alexandria,  who  were  Greeks, 
Egyptians  and  imported  Jews.  The  culture  and  refinement  of 
Greece  was  transferred  to  the  new  city  of  Alexandria,  and  it 
became  a  great  seat  of  learning.  All  the  arts  and  every  branch 
of  science  flourished.  An  immense  library  was  collected;  the 
several  forms  of  astral  worship  were  represented  and  schools 
for  the  full  dissemination  of  Greek  philosophy.  Schools  also 
of  oriental  gnosticism  were  permitted.  Alexandria  soon  became 
a  great  cosmopolitan  city. 

Encouraged  by  the  liberal  policy  of  Philadelphus,  the  second 
Ptolemy,  a  body  of  learned  Jews  who  had  been  educated  in  the 
Greek  schools,  founded  a  college  for  the  education  of  their  own 
people  which  was  ultimately  known  as  the  university  of  Alex- 
andria. One  of  the  projects  of  Philadelphus,  was  to  have  the 
sacred  writings  of  all  nations  placed  in  his  library.  Seventy 
of  the  best  Greek  and  Hebrew  professors  of  that  institution, 
rendered  the  Hebrew  sacred  records  into  the  Greek  language. 
This  translation  is  known  as  the  Septuagint  or  Alexandrian 
Version  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  religious  system  organized 
by  Ptolemy  Soter,  was  soon  embraced  by  the  great  body  of 
the  Greek  people  living  in  Egypt,  Asia  Minor  and  the  islands. 
The  title  of  Serapis  was  "  Our  Lord  and  Savior  Serapis/'  He 
was  a  composite  character,  he  represented  as  a  composite  indi- 
vidual, Dionysius,  Mercury,  Hermes  and  Osiris.  Ptolemy  de- 
clared that  Serapis  had  appeared  to  him  in  a  vision.  Among  the 
philosophers  at  Alexandria  whose  doctrines  had  received  special 
attention  was  Pythagoras.  The  asceticism  practiced  by  the 
teachers  of  this  philosophy  was  in  harmony  with  the  general 
characteristics  of  the  Jewish  race  and  a  number  of  them  or- 
ganized a  sect  to  which  the  name  of  Essens  was  given.  Being 
at  all  times  in  communication  with  their  brethren  in  Judea 
some  of  the  professors  from  time  to  time  visited  the  fatherland 
and  introduced  the  doctrines  of  the  Alexandrian  Jews  and  by 


8o  Modernism 

this  means  the  third  sect  of  the  Jews  was  established.  Before 
this  sect  had  been  established,  a  number  of  the  Alexandrian 
Jews  who  were  professors  in  the  Greek  schools  had  joined 
with  those  of  other  nations  in  the  worship  of  Serapis  and  had 
been  ordained  priests.  Most  of  these  belonged  to  that  branch 
of  the  church  that  came  under  the  name  of  Therapeutea  or 
healers. 

There  is  no  record  of  any  nation  of  people  where  science, 
art,  literature  and  philosophy  were  cultivated  to  so  high  a 
degree  as  by  the  Greeks.  Philosophers,  poets  of  every  style 
of  composition,  orators,  sculptors,  painters,  musicians,  generals, 
mathematicians,  astronomers,  geographers,  dramatists,  physi- 
cians, architects,  and  every  other  profession  was  cultivated  to 
the  highest  degree  of  excellence  up  to  their  own  time.  At  last 
when  their  country  fell  under  the  invincible  legions  of  Rome, 
the  intellectual  gain  to  Rome  was  much  greater  than  their 
material  profit.  The  Greek  philosophers  and  scientists  had  by 
the  best  means  it  is  possible  to  use,  searched  and  investigated 
all  the  professed  authorities  on  the  history  of  mankind  in  order 
to  find  if  possible  the  truth  in  this  domain,  and  ended  in  their 
search  by  admitting  that  they  knew  nothing  only  what  they 
had  gained  by  experience,  and  that  no  system  of  philosophy 
that  existed  in  the  world  was  perfect,  although  they  had  exam- 
ined every  one  that  made  any  pretention  to  be  authorized  by 
God  or  man. 

It  was  stated  a  short  time  ago  that  the  Jewish  priests  while 
captives  in  Assyria,  possessed  themselves  of  all  the  allegories 
which  we  find  in  the  book  called  the  Bible.  It  would  be  silly 
to  attempt  to  explain  all  of  the  allegories,  but  it1  will  be 
necessary  to  explain  a  part  of  Genesis  in  order  to  show  that 
the  same  thing  can  be  done  with  all  of  the  book  that  is  not 
strictly  historical.  "  The  creation,"  says  Clemens  Alexandrinus 
"  was  concluded  in  six  days,  for  the  motions  of  the  sun  from 
solstice  to  solstice  was  complete  in  six  months."  The  man 
who  wrote  that  sentence  was  the  most  learned  and  the  most 
prolific  writer  of  the  early  Christian  Fathers.  If  he  believed 
that  the  six  days  of  the  creation  as  recorded  in  Genesis,  was 
an  allegory,  he  must  have  believed  that  the  whole  of  Genesis 
is  allegorical  as  it  certainly  is.  According  to  the  interpretation 


Man  and  the  Earth  81 

of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  the  first  day's  labor  would  begin 
when  the  sun  enters  the  sign  of  the  Goat,  "  in  the  beginning 
(the  gods — Elohim)  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth.*  And 


*  When  the  ancestors  of  the  Aryans  who  had  wandered  up  the  Indus 
and  over  the  highlands  into  central  Asia  had  reached  that  country  the 
sun  was  shining  vertically  on  latitude  about  thirty-five  degrees  north  and 
south.  It  is  likely  that  the  great  weight  of  ice,  snow  and  water  at  and 
near  the  poles  caused  the  inclination  of  the  axis  to  extend  to  about  forty 
degrees  north  and  south,  before  the  inclination  began  to  diminish.  In 
the  declining  movement,  it  is  also  likely  that  before  the  inclination  had 
settled  down  permanently  to  twenty-three  and  one-half  degrees,  that  it 
had  fallen  back  to  about  twenty  degrees  and  then  gradually  come  up 
to  twenty-three  and  one-half.  As  the  atmosphere  in  central  Asia  had 
become  too  cold  for  comfort  at  this  time,  nearly  all  of  the  tribes  that 
had  not  already  migrated  to  Asia  Minor,  eastern  and  western  Europe, 
now  began  to  recross  the  highlands  and  come  back  into  India.  These 
and  the  other  tribes  that  went  to  Asia  Minor  and  Europe  were  the  true 
white  races.  These  people  had  passed  through  all  the  phases  of  nature 
worship  and  had  begun  to  speculate  on  the  origin  and  nature  of  things. 
The  book  o4  Genesis  gives  their  ideas  in  relation  to  the  structure  of  the 
earth,  the  stellar  universe  and  the  solar  system.  The  fact  that  their 
first  man  had  only  one  wife  and  what  is  written  in  relation  to  the  mar- 
riage state  shows  that  they  had  arrived  at  a  high  state  of  social  life. 
When  that  story  became  the  property  of  the  Jewish  priests  during  their 
captivity  in  Babylonia,  it  was  something  entirely  new  to  them.  The  Jews 
were  and  had  always  been  polygamists,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  when 
the  story  was  read  to  them  after  they  returned  to  Palestine,  that  it  had 
much  influence  on  their  domestic  habits  or  customs  for  a  good  while. 
When  that  story  was  written  all  the  astronomical  constellations  with  the 
exception  of  a  very  few,  existed  as  they  are  to-day,  but  some  of  them 
under  other  names.  But  there  has  been  a  woeful  mistake  made  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  first  verse.  This  comes  from  the  fact,  that  the 
Jewish  priest  who  copied  it  from  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Babylonians, 
did  not  understand  what  that  first  verse  meant.  As  stated  before  the 
writer  of  the  story  was  a  worshipper  of  nature,  therefore  in  beginning 
he  wrote,  "  In  the  beginning  the  gods  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth." 
The  general  interpretation  of  this  verse  is,  that  the  substance  of  which 
the  universe  is  composed  did  not  exist  before  the  act  of  creating  the 
whole  in  a  sort  of  chaotic  or  formless  condition  was  consummated  that 
all  this  substance  was  created  from  nothing.  The  verse  does  not  say 
so,  but  such  has  been  the  interpretation.  When  this  story  was  written 
the  writer  believed  that  the  earth  was  flat,  that  the  stars  were  small 
lamps  created  for  the  purpose  of  giving  some  light  to  the  people  of  the 
earth,  that  there  was  a  great  fire  called  the  hearth  of  the  universe  behind 
the  earth,  from  which  the  little  lamps  (the  stars)  replenished  their  light, 
that  the  sun  got  its  light  and  heat  from  this  great  central  fire  and  that 
from  the  sun  shining  on  the  moon,  the  moon  reflected  the  light  on  the 
earth.  This  was  the  supposed  condition  of  things  when  he  was  writing 
the  story,  but  when  he  said  that  "  In  the  beginning  the  gods  created  or 
made  the  heaven  and  the  earth,"  he  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  say, 
"  Now  I  will  tell  you  how  they  did  it,"  but  that  first  verse  contains  all 
that  he  specifically  related  afterwards  in  relation  to  the  formation  of  the 
heaven  and  earth.  That  first  verse  was  not  intended  to  convey  the  mean- 
ing that  the  universe  was  made  or  created  from  nothing.  This  story 
passed  from  central  Asia  or  India  through  the  communication  of  the 
Aryan  priests  with  the  priests  of  other  nations. 


82  Modernism 

the  earth  was  without  form  and  void,  and  the  spirit  of  god 
moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters."  The  constellation  being 
a  sea  goat  is  sufficient  to  show  that  this  verse  refers  to  the  sun 
in  this  part  of  the  heavens.  "And  God  said  let  there  be  light 
and  there  was  light.  And  God  saw  the  light  that  it  was  good; 
and  God  divided  the  light  from  the  darkness.  And  God  called 
the  light  day,  and  the  darkness  he  called  night.  And  the  even- 
ing and  the  morning  were  the  first  day."  People  who  do  not 
believe  that  the  laws  of  nature  can  be  set  aside  by  the  word 
of  any  one,  usually  say  when  speaking  of  that  first  evening 
and  morning,  how  could  there  be  daylight  without  the  sun? 
And  of  course  there  could  not,  but  the  writer  of  this  allegory 
believed  there  could. 

You  will  remember  that  an  old  philosopher  seeing  the  fiery 
appearance  of  the  eastern  and  western  heavens  before  and  after 
sunrise  and  sunset,  and  the  northern  lights  when  the  sun  was 
below  the  horizon,  thought  these  lights  were  the  tops  of  a 
blazing  fire  that  was  behind  the  earth,  and  that  this  fire  was 
called  the  hearth  of  the  universe.  Well,  the  man  who  wrote 
these  verses  believed  in  that  hearth  fire,  from  which  the  sun 
received  its  light  and  reflected  it  upon  the  earth  as  did  Pythag- 
oras and  all  the  priests  who  kept  a  perpetual  fire  on  their 
altars.  "And  God  said  let  there  be  a  firmament  in  the  midst 
of  the  waters.  And  God  made  the  firmament  and  divided  the 
waters  which  were  under  the  firmament  from  the  waters  which 
were  above  the  firmament;  and  it  was  so.  And  God  called  the 
firmament  heaven.  And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the 
second  day."  The  sun  has  now  entered  the  constellation  of  the 
Water  Bearer,  and  God  (the  sun)  is  now  regulating  the  waters. 
But  the  firmament  spoken  of  here,  is  like  the  light  without  the 
sun.  The  glassy  firmament  with  windows  in  it  to  let  the  waters 
through  when  it  rains.  Although  the  writer  believed  that,  still 
the  firmament  never  was  there.  The  sun  now  enters  the  con- 
stellation of  the  Fishes  on  the  third  day,  and  the  seas  and  the 
land,  the  grass  and  trees  make  their  appearance.  If  there  had 
been  snow  on  the  ground  as  there  usually  is  in  a  great  part  of 
the  world  in  February,  it  would  be  clearing  off  now  just  before 
the  month  of  March.  "And  God  said  let  there  be  lights  in  the 
firmament  of  the  heaven  to  divide  the  day  from  the  night,  and 
let  them  be  for  signs  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days  and  for 


Man  and  the  Earth  83 

years.  And  God  set  them  to  rule  over  the  day  and  night,  and 
to  divide  the  light  from  the  darkness."  On  the  fourth  day 
the  sun  has  entered  the  constellation  of  Aries,  the  moon  is  now 
returning  from  the  north  and  is  traveling  in  the  sun's  track; 
apparently,  the  sun  now  begins  to  act  on  vegetation.  It  was 
supposed  that  the  moon  and  stars  had  considerable  influence 
on  vegetation.  The  sun,  moon  and  stars  are  now  the  undis- 
puted sovereigns  of  day  and  night,  and  in  an  allegory  it  could 
be  said  that  they  were  created  on  the  fourth  day.  On  the  fifth 
day  the  sun  enters  the  sign  of  the  Bull,  and  the  constellations 
that  have  not  been  spoken  of  but  which  the  sun  has  passed 
through,  are  now  spoken  of  such  as  whales,  fishes  and  winged 
fowls;  and  on  the  sixth  day  the  bull  is  referred  to  as  the 
cattle.  And  on  the  sixth  day  all  the  animals  that  had  not  been 
created  before  are  now  finished  when  the  sun  enters  the  con- 
stellation of  the  twins;  these  were  originally  male  and  female, 
and  they  now  stand  for  Adam  and  Eve.  The  celestial  and  ter- 
restrial paradises  are  now  open  to  the  beholder.  The  earth  is 
clothed  with  vegetation;  the  air  is  fragrant  with  the  perfume 
of  flower,  fruit,  expanding  stem  and  waving  foliage  of  every 
variety.  Gold  and  silver-lined  clouds  bank  the  western  sky  as 
the  sun  is  descending  behind  the  mountain  peaks.  Evening  twi- 
light comes  and  the  reflection  of  the  sun's  rays  off  the  western 
ocean  (called  tropical  light),  mantles  the  celestial  paradise  with 
a  quivering  fan  of  changeful  hue.  On  the  seventh  day  the  sun 
enters  the  sign  of  the  Crab,  it  has  now  reached  its  highest 
altitude  in  the  heavens;  the  work  of  creation  is  ended.  And  as 
the  sun  seems  to  rest  a  few  days  before  it  begins  its  southern 
declination,  it  could  be  said  in  an  allegory  that  the  lord  (the 
sun)  rested  on  the  seventh  day. 

A  new  act  now  begins  as  a  sequel  to  what  had  been  un- 
finished in  the  foregoing  allegory.  In  all  the  allegories  the  sun 
assumes  the  qualities  of  the  signs  it  is  passing  through.  In  the 
constellation  of  the  Crab  there  are  two  small  constellations  called 
the  Asses.  The  chaldaic  name  for  the  ass  may  be  translated 
Muddiness  that  is,  dust  mixed  with  water;  this  refers  to  Adam 
being  made  of  the  slime  of  the  earth.  "  The  Lord  God  formed 
man  of  the  slime  of  the  ground  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils 
the  breath  of  life,  and  man  became  a  living  soul." 


84  Modernism 

From  man's  first  existence  on  the  earth  up  to  the  time  of 
Socrates,  it  had  been  believed  that  the  shadow  or  shade  of  man 
was  his  soul,  as  has  been  stated  in  another  part  of  this  book. 
We  have  evidence  of  the  fact  that  it  required  a  great  amount 
of  discussion  to  discredit  that  idea  before  it  was  admitted  that 
the  soul  consists  of  the  breath.  Before  this  result  had  been 
reached,  it  had  been  the  belief  of  the  most  advanced  communi- 
ties, that  the  shades  of  animals  and  evil  beings  of  the  imagination 
took  possession  of  the  bodies  of  people  and  made  them  sick, 
crazy,  deaf,  dumb  and  deformed.  It  was  believed  that  all  these 
malignant  shades  knew  what  the  people  did  while  they  were  in 
the  bodies  of  people,  and  in  order  that  those  possessed  might  get 
these  evil  shades  out  of  them,  they  confessed  their  sins,  believing 
that  they  would  have  no  further  trouble.  If  this  failed,  they 
called  on  the  priest  who  tried  to  exorcise  the  evil  shades  by 
incantation  and  other  performances.  When  the  belief  became 
popular  that  the  breath  was  the  soul;  the  breath  or  soul  leaving 
the  body  of  a  dying  person  immediately  entered  the  atmosphere 
and  it  was  liable  to  be  inhaled  by  the  nearest  person  or  animal 
to  the  person  who  died.  As  almost  every  one  was  more  or 
less  sinful,  it  was  believed  that  the  Lord  conducted  the  soul 
or  breath  of  the  sinner  to  the  mouth  of  some  animal  who 
inhaled  it.*  If  the  person  had  been  a  great  sinner  the  soul 
passed  at  the  death  of  the  first  animal  on  to  another.  This 
transmigration  of  the  soul  of  the  sinner  from  one  animal  to 
another  or  from  the  body  of  a  good  man  to  that  of  another 
good  man,  as  a  doctrine,  had  been  outgrown  by  the  early 
Greeks  and  a  few  other  nations,  but  Pythagoras  imbibing  it 
either  in  India  or  Egypt  caused  it  to  spread  again  through 
Greece  and  Italy.  However,  when  the  priests  of  Assyria  or 
Chaldea,  wrote  the  allegories  contained  in  Genesis,  it  was  be- 
lieved by  them  that  the  breath  is  the  soul,  this  fact  is  evident. 

We  will  now  continue  our  allegory:  "And  the  Lord  God 
planted  a  garden  eastward  in  Eden  and  there  he  put  the  man 
whom  he  had  formed."  You  will  recollect  that  the  constellation 
of  the  Twins  stood  for  Adam  and  Eve  on  the  sixth  day,  but 
Adam  has  been  removed  to  the  garden  of  Eden,  as  the  sun  had 
advanced  westward  since  that  time,  so  we  now  find  Adam  in 
the  constellation  of  Bootes,  Bootes  was  the  first  man  who  was 


*This  idea  is  the  foundation  of  the  doctrine  of  Metempsychosis. 


Man  and  the  Earth  85 

ever  placed  in  the  heavens.  What  the  original  name  of  that 
man  was  we  don't  know.  It  may  have  been  Ad  or  At.  "And 
out  of  the  ground  made  the  Lord  God  to  grow  every  tree  that 
is  pleasant  to  the  sight,  and  good  for  food.  The  tree  of  life 
also  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  and  the  tree  of  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil."  The  tree  of  life  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  is 
the  pole  star,  around  which  all  the  stars  that  can  be  seen, 
seem  to  revolve;  that  this  interpretation  is  true  will  be  seen 
later.  The  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  is  near  the  tail 
of  the  serpent  in  the  constellation  of  Serpentarious.  The  sol- 
stitial colure  passes  through  the  equinoctial  at  that  point.  It  is 
situated  in  the  mid-heaven,  equi-distant  from  the  poles  and 
midway  between  the  vernal  and  autumnal  equinoxes.  The  four 
cardinal  lines  or  streams  start  from  this  point  in  the  heavens; 
these  are  called  the  four  rivers.  Only  the  most  expert  astrol- 
ogers knew  where  the  solstitial  colure  passes  through  the 
equinoctial,  so  that  this  could  be  called  the  tree  of  knowledge. 
In  the  ancient  theology  which  these  allegories  represent,  when 
the  sun  crossed  the  line  in  September  it  went  down  into  the 
dominion  of  evil,  but  it  was  in  the  good  domain  until  it  did 
go  down  below  the  line. 

This  is  one  part  of  the  interpretation,  there  is  another  which 
comes  later.  "And  the  Lord  God  commanded  the  man,  saying, 
of  every  tree  of  the  garden  thou  mayest  freely  eat,  but  of 
the  tree*  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  thou  shall  not  eat  of 
it,  for  in  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shall  surely 
die."  "And  the  Lord  God  caused  a  deep  sleep  to  fall  upon 
Adam,  and  he  slept;"  "And  he  took  one  of  his  ribs  and  closed 
up  the  flesh  instead  thereof;"  "And  the  rib  which  the  Lord 
God  had  taken  from  man  made  he  a  woman  and  brought  her 
unto  the  man.  Now  the  serpent  was  more  subtle  than  any  beast 
of  the  field  which  the  Lord  God  had  made,  and  he  said  unto 
the  woman,  Yea,  hath  God  said  ye  shall  not  eat  of  every  tree 
of  the  garden?  And  the  woman  said  unto  the  serpent,  we 
may  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  trees  of  the  garden;  but  of  the  fruit 
of  the  tree  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  God  hath  said, 
Ye  shall  not  eat  of  it.  Neither  shall  you  touch  it,  lest  you  die; 
and  the  serpent  said  unto  the  woman,  Ye  shall  not  surely  die, 
for  God  doth  know  that  in  the  day  ye  eat  thereof  then  your 

*The  Jewish  idea  of  the  forbidden  fruit  was  the  organs  of  generation. 


86  Modernism 

eyes  shall  be  opened,  and  ye  shall  be  as  gods  knowing  good 
and  evil."  In  the  ninth  verse  of  the  second  chapter,  God  said 
that  the  tree  of  life  was  in  the  midst  of  the  garden;  in  the  third 
verse  of  the  third  chapter,  the  woman  said  that  the  tree  of 
knowledge  was  in  the  midst  of  the  garden.  One  of  these  state- 
ments would  seem  to  contradict  the  other,  but  it  does  not.  The 
pole  star,  the  tree  of  life  is  in  the  midst  of  the  whole  heaven 
north  of  the  equator.  The  tree  of  knowledge  is  midway  be- 
tween both  poles  and  between  the  east  and  the  west,  as  the  sun 
seems  to  move.  Where  the  allegory  says  that  the  Lord  caused 
Adam  to  fall  into  a  deep  sleep  it  refers  to  the  night  time  when 
we  all  ought  to  sleep,  and  when  the  sun  is  below  the  horizon. 
But  the  moon  is  up  now  and  full,  and  she  was  called  Ma,  and 
therefore  represents  the  woman  in  the  allegory  in  this  verse. 
The  sun  representing  Adam  is  shining  below  the  horizon,  and 
a  ray  (or  rib)  from  the  sun  makes  the  moon  (the  woman), 
appear.  As  the  sun  lost  nothing  by  casting  its  ray  on  the 
moon,  neither  was  Adam  injured  by  the  surgical  operation,  as 
it  was  an  allegorical  one.  The  wisdom  of  the  serpent  repre- 
sented here  refers  to  /Esculapius  the  wisest  and  most  expert 
physician  that  the  world  had  ever  known  of;  and  when  he  tells 
the  woman  that  she  will  not  surely  die,  he  meant  it,  for  that 
is  the  assurance  he  gave  to  all  his  patients. 

This  part  of  the  allegory  represents  the  sun  in  the  sign  of 
the  scales.  The  beam  of  the  scales  stands  on  the  line  of  the 
elliptic  and  one  of  the  receptacles  on  which  things  were  laid 
to  be  weighed  is  in  the  dominion  of  good  above  the  line,  the 
other  receptacle  is  below  the  line  in  the  dominion  of  evil. 
In  the  Egyptian  scheme  of  salvation,  at  death,  the  good  acts 
of  the  dead  man  were  placed  on  one  side  of  the  scales  and  his 
bad  acts  on  the  other;  if  his  good  acts  outweighed  his  bad 
ones  he  was  saved,  but  if  his  bad  ones  weighed  the  most  he 
was  lost.  But  the  Lord  said  that  "  He  would  put  enmity 
between  the  seed  of  the  woman  and  the  seed  of  the  serpent. 
It  shall  bruise  thy  head  and  thou  shalt  bruise  his  heel."  This 
sentence  refers  to  Hercules  and  Draco  in  their  constellations.* 
Draco  was  the  seed  of  the  serpent  that  was  cursed,  and  Her- 
cules was  the  seed  of  the  woman  who  was  the  mother  of  all  the 


*On  any  pictorial  map  of  the  heavens  the  foot  of  Hercules  is  on  the 
head  of  the  serpent,  showing  that  Hercules  fulfils  that  prediction. 


Man  and  the  Earth  87 

demi-gods.  She  stands  there  in  the  heaven  and  Adam  is  just 
above  her,  where  he  has  ruled  over  her  for  thousands  of  years. 
Adam  (the  sun)  is  now  driven  out  of  Eden  into  the  season  of 
thorns  and  thistles,  and  as  it  is  getting  cold  the  Lord  makes 
clothes  for  them  of  skins  of  some  of  the  animals.  And  in  order 
that  he  can't  get  near  the  tree  of  life  to  eat  of  its  fruit  and  live 
forever,  "  he  drove  out  the  man ;  and  he  placed  at  the  east  of 
the  garden  of  Eden  cherubim  and  a  flaming  sword  which  turned 
every  way  to  keep  the  way  of  the  tree  of  life." 

Any  one  during  a  summer  evening  when  the  stars  are  out, 
in  looking  toward  the  pole  star  will  see  the  cherubim  (Perseus) 
and  his  flaming  sword  turning  every  way  to  prevent  any  one 
from  getting  near  the  tree  of  life  (the  pole  star).  The  reason 
the  woman  was  tempted  before  the  man  is  because  the  moon 
reaches  that  part  of  its  orbit  before  the  sun.  The  sun  now  going 
down  out  of  the  northern  heaven  the  allegory  says  "  The  Lord 
drove  out  the  man,"  and  as  the  moon  is  now  up  in  the  northern 
heaven,  she  can't  be  driven  out,  so  there  is  nothing  said  about 
the  woman.  In  all  solar  allegories  the  heroes  are  personifica- 
tions of  the  sun  and  the  heroines  are  personifications  of  the 
moon.  Every  word  of  the  three  chapters  of  Genesis  that  we 
have  gone  through,  that  appears  to  be  historical,  is  simply  a 
part  of  an  allegory  or  myth.  Abram,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  each 
in  turn  is  a  personification  of  the  sun,  and  their  wives  of  the 
moon.  These  allegories  run  through  the  whole  of  that  part 
of  the  Bible  that  the  Jews  obtained  while  captives  in  Assyria.* 
In  the  account  of  the  deluge,  the  old  tradition  of  the  great 
deluge  was  mixed  with  the  deucalion  flood,  as  a  large  part  of 
Asia  Minor  was  affected  by  the  latter  deluge.  Many  of  these 
facts  have  come  to  light  recently  through  the  intelligent  labor 
of  archeologists,  and  as  the  Church  of  the  sixteenth  century 
still  under  the  dominance  of  Paul's  pupil  Augustine,  used  its 
power  to  prevent  the  acceptance  of  the  Copernican  system,  the 
oligarchy  of  Italian  cardinals,  for  whose  benefit  and  that  of 
their  families  principally  the  Papacy  exists,  compelled  the  Pope, 
who  is  a  mere  figurehead  in  flie  hands  of  these  men,  to  ap- 
point a  commission  whose  duty  it  was  to  declare  that  Moses 
wrote  the  most  important  part  of  them.  This  was  done  for 

*No  Protestant  writer  of  any  reputation  believes  that  Moses  wrote 
any  part  of  the  Old  Testament. 


88  ..       Modernism 

the  purpose  of  trying  to  turn  the  wheels  of  progressive  knowl- 
edge backward. 

In  a  conversation  with  a  Brahmin  or  priest  of  Calcutta,  in 
relation  to  the  Avatar*  theory  or  doctrine,  he  said  as  a  religious 
philosophy  it  had  a  firm  basis.  When  the  time  came  for  the 
appearance  of  a  new  Avatar  or  incarnation  of  the  deity,  that 
it  not  only  gave  excuse  for,  but  made  it  obligatory  to  make 
religious  and  political  changes  or  reformations  in  conformity 
with  the  discovery  of  new  truth  and  moral  obligations  that  are 
of  great  advantage  to  humanity.  Conservatism  and  the  posses- 
sion of  acknowledged  authority  must  give  way  to  the  precepts 
of  the  new  Avatar,  therefore  as  a  mere  philosophical  idea  the 
doctrine  is  invaluable  to  humanity. 

Before  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  there  had  been  a  few  public 
characters  in  Rome  deified  while  living,  so  that  when  the  im- 
mortal Julius  had  displayed  such  wonderful  capacity  and  success 
in  all  his  undertakings  as  a  soldier,  orator,  and  statesman, 
unequalled  in  the  history,  of  mankind,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
he  should  be  deified  and  receive  the  homage  due  to  a  god 
while  living.  According  to  his  religious  biography,  his  birth 
was  miraculous,  as  he  was  taken  from  the  side  of  his  mother. 
A  star  appeared  over  his  cradle  to  announce  his  advent  to  the 
world.  He  laughed  at  the  moment  of  his  birth.  At  the  age 
of  seventeen  he  became  a  priest  of  Jupiter;  at  twenty-seven  a 
cardinal  or  member  of  the  sacred  college,  at  thirty-eight,  Pon- 
tifex  Maximus,  and  at  fifty-four,  he  was  deified  in  Egypt  in  the 
temple  of  Jupiter  Ammon;  and  at  fifty-six  he  was  deified  by 
the  Roman  senate.  When  he  died  the  sun  was  darkened  and 
there  was  an  earthquake.  A  comet  appeared  which  it  was 
believed  carried  his  soul  to  heaven. 

The  first  definite  date  for  the  appearance  of  an  incarnation 
of  the  deity,  with  the  full  account  of  his  life  and  death,  was 
the  year  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  thirty-two,  B.  C.  This 
was  les  Chrishna  or  Chrishna.  This  was  the  ninth  Avatar  ac- 


*It  would  be  useless  to  mention  the  names  of  the  several  Avatars  that 
the  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  Persians,  Indians,  Chinese,  Peruvians,  Mexi- 
cans, and  other  nations  of  the  old  and  new  world  claim  have  appeared 
and  lived  and  died  in  those  countries.  But  it  might  be  stated  that 
at  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  our  era,  most  of  these  nations  by 
systems  of  their  own  for  computing  cycles  for  the  appearance  of  a  new 
Avatar  or  Saviour,  had  predicted  that  at  this  time  a  new  Saviour 
should  appear. 


Man  and  the  Earth  89 

cording  to  the  Indian  chronology;  at  the  end  of  the  divine  year, 
or  six  hundred  and  fifty-eight  years  before  our  era,  Buddha  was 
born.  The  year  six  hundred  and  fifty  is  the  Augustine  date  for 
the  birth  of  Buddha.  At  the  end  of  the  next  divine  year,  that 
is,  the  beginning  of  our  era,  Salivahana  is  named  by  northern 
India  as  the  tenth  Avatar  or  incarnation  of  the  deity.  This 
was  the  time  set  by  the  Indian  fakirs  for  the  end  of  the  world. 
As  the  invasion  of  Alexander  the  Great,  had  caused  consid- 
erable commotion  throughout  India,  the  seers,  sibyls  and 
prophets  of  Asia  Minor,  Greece,  Egypt  and  Rome  had  predicted 
that  the  manifestor  of  this  period  would  usher  in  the  millennary 
age.  The  Romans  had  placed  all  their  reliance  on  the  predic- 
tion of  the  Cumean  Sibyl.  Virgil  the  Roman  poet,  believed  it 
pointed  to  his  royal  patron.  Although  when  Virgil  wrote  the 
^neid,  the  more  intelligent  part  of  the  Roman  people  did  not 
have  much  faith  in  the  ancient  gods,  yet  he  made  as  extrava- 
gant a  use  of  those  gods  in  that  poem,  as  Homer  did  in  his 
great  poem,  the  Iliad;  this  of  itself,  is  pretty  good  evidence 
that  the  vast  majority  of  the  people  believed  in  those  gods.  The 
Cumean  Sibyl  had  uttered  her  prediction  that  the  time  was  at 
hand,  and  Virgil  taking  a  view  of  the  condition  of  the  world, 
knowing  the  eminent  qualities  of  his  great  patron  and  his  power 
of  doing  good,  seemed  to  think  that  Augustus  was  the  person 
whose  beneficent  reign  would  be  the  glory  of  mankind.  Augus- 
tus was  one  of  the  greatest  politicians  that  ever  lived.  The 
common  people  looked  upon  Virgil  as  a  prophet,  that  his  poems 
were  inspired,  and  the  Roman  emperor  left  no  stone  unturned 
that  would  help  to  spread  the  belief  that  he  was  a  god  and  the 
man  to  whom  the  Sibylline  prediction  pointed  as  the  Saviour  and 
Avatar  of  the  great  period  predicted  by  the  seers  of  the  west 
and  Egypt. 

The  senate  recognized  him  as  the  long  expected  Messiah, 
a  fact  that  Augustus  mentions  in  his  will,  wkich  is  carved  on 
the  Temple  of  Ancyra,  still  standing  with  the  inscription  upon 
it.  At  first  he  only  claimed  to  be  the  son  of  God;  afterwards 
he  accepted  the  title  and  prayers  due  to  the  Creator,  and  as 
such  was  addressed  in  the  temples  dedicated  to  his  worship. 
He  erected  a  temple  near  the  Tarpeian  rock  in  Rome  which 
was  inscribed  "To  Augustus  the  First  Born  of  God."  In  the 
inscriptions  of  the  recently  exhumed  public  edifices  of  Ephesus, 


90  Modernism 

Augustus  is  addressed  the  Son  of  God.  As  supreme  pontiff, 
he  lawfully  acquired  and  exercised  full  authority  over  every 
thing  and  every  person  holding  any  religious  position.  Great 
images  and  shrines  of  the  same  god  were  erected  in  the  high- 
ways and  resorted  to  for  sanctuary.  There  were  a  thousand 
of  such  shrines  in  Rome  alone.  Even  the  emperors  who  suc- 
ceeded him,  among  them  Tiberius,  Nero,  and  Hadrian,  built 
altars  and  offered  sacrifices  to  Augustus.  The  common  people 
wore  little  images  of  him  suspended  from  their  neck.  The 
number  of  miracles  related  of  him  is  endless.  The  image  of 
Augustus  upon  the  coins  of  his  own  mintage  or  that  of  his 
vassals,  is  surrounded  with  a  halo  of  light  which  indicates  divin- 
ity; and  on  the  reverse  of  the  coins  are  displayed  the  various 
emblems  of  religion,  such  as  the  mitre,  cross,  crook,  fishes, 
labarum,  and  the  Buddhic  and  Bacchic  or  Dionysian  monogram 
of  "  P."  In  India,  the  Avatar  Salivahana  and  Augustus  were 
regarded  as  the  same.  In  a  work  on  art  published  recently, 
nearly  one  hundred  sacred  titles  given  to  Augustus  are  cited, 
from  marble  and  bronze  monuments  still  extant. 

Outside  of  the  gods  that  had  been  recognized  by  Greece 
and  Rome,  the  worship  of  Augustus  was  the  only  one  tolerated 
for  a  time.  He  was  worshipped  under  the  titles  of  Jupiter, 
Apollo,  Janus,  Quirinus,  Dionysius,  and  nearly  one  hundred 
others.  A  regular  cult  and  an  order  of  priests  was  established 
to  give  special  attention  to  his  worship.  An  age  or  era  was 
established  beginning  with  the  apotheosis  of  Augustus,  and  the 
Roman  empire  and  the  most  civilized  regions  of  the  world 
have  lived  under  the  title  of  Anno  Domini,  or  the  year  of 
our  Lord  (and  Saviour  Augustus),  as  it  has  been  written.  The 
worship  of  Augustus  continued  until  Commodus  destroyed  the 
respect  which  the  Romans  had  for  the  divine  character  of  their 
emperors.  Before  his  death  there  was  a  private  feast  which 
became  known  as  the  supper  of  the  twelve  gods.  Twelve  inti- 
mate friends  of  Augustus  were  attired  as  gods  and  goddesses, 
himself  personating  Apollo.  A  stately  funeral  bore  his  re- 
mains to  the  mausoleum,  his  dirge  was  chanted  by  the  children 
of  nobles;  the  senate  decreed  him  divine  honors,  and  the  Senator 
Numericus  Atticus  swore  that  he  saw  his  effigy  ascend  to 
heaven.  A  splendid  representation  of  the  ascension  carved  upon 


Man  and  the  Earth  91 

a  huge  cameo,  was  presented  by  the  Emperor  Baldwin  the 
Second,  to  Louis  the  Ninth  of  France. 

"  The  Augustine  era  since  masked  under  other  names,  served 
for  dates  of  the  Roman  world,  until  some  time  after  the  reign 
of  Justinian  Second,  when  without  unnecessary  disturbance  of 
recorded  dates,  the  years  which  were  formerly  reckoned  from 
A.  U.  738,  were  reckoned  from  A.  U.  753.  When  the  chron- 
ology of  the  Augustine  period  is  closely  examined  it  will  be 
found  to  have  been  altered  by  the  Latin  sacred  college  to  the 
extend  of  fifteen  years."* 

When  the  Jews  were  in  the  Babylonian  captivity  their  chief 
priests  got  an  undefined  idea  of  the  Avatar  system,  and  it  was 
ambiguously  inserted  in  some  of  their  books,  but  the  common 
people  were  not  privileged  to  interpret  their  sacred  writings; 
This  was  the  privilege  of  the  Jewish  council  and  the  high  priest 
alone.  About  the  time  that  the  apotheosis  of  Augustus  took 
place,  a  number  of  Jews  who  were  ignorant  of  the  esoteric 
interpretation  of  their  scriptures,  were  irritated  beyond  descrip- 
tion to  find  that  their  country  had  been  shorn  of  its  independence 
and  reduced  to  a  small  section  of  a  province  of  the  Roman 
empire.  Underestimating  the  power  of  Rome  and  over- 
estimating the  Lord's  interest  in  the  prosperity  of  the 
Jewish  people,  a  large  faction  began  to  agitate  the  ques- 
tion of  paying  tribute  money  to  Rome.  This  faction  declared 
that  it  was  unlawful  for  them  to  pay  tribute.  The  leader  of 
this  faction,  Judas,  a  Galilean,  argued  that  it  was  unlawful  and 
cowardly  to  pay  taxes  to  the  Romans,  or  to  submit  to  mortal 
men  as  their  lords.  This  assumption  of  a  man  or  faction  of 
the  right  to  interpret  the  law,  unsanctioned  by  the  high  priest 
and  his  council,  was  unprecedented  in  the  history  of  Judaism. 
It  was  the  belief  of  Judas  and  his  followers,  that  all  that  was 
necessary  to  re-establish  their  independence,  was  for  the  people 
to  rise  up  unanimously  and  God  would  help  them  to  destroy 
the  dominion  of  Rome  over  them,  and  that  a  prediction  which 
they  had  discovered  in  their  sacred  writings,  they  assumed, 
gave  ample  guarantee  that  they  would  be  not  only  successful 
but  that  a  leader  would  be  developed  in  the  war  who  would 
be  the  governor  of  all  the  earth. 


*Del  Mar. 


92  Modernism 

The  predictions  on  which  they  based  their  belief  that  a  man 
who  was  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  should  be  the  governor  of  all 
the  nations,  are  as  follows:  "  There  shall  come  a  star  out  of 
Jacob,  and  a  sceptre  shall  rise  out  of  Israel,  and  shall  smite 
the  corners  of  Moab  and  destroy  all  the  children  of  Sheth." 
The  time  when  it  was  expected  that  the  star  should  come,  was 
taken  from  the  blessing  of  Judah  by  Jacob,  where  it  says :  "  The 
sceptre  shall  not  depart  from  Judah,  nor  a  law-giver  from  be- 
neath his  feet  until  Shiloh  come  and  unto  him  shall  be  the 
gathering  of  the  people."  Both  of  these  so-called  prophecies 
are  astrological,  for  they  refer  to  constellations  of  the  Zodiac. 
Shiloh  and  a  gathering  of  the  people  refer  to  the  gathering  of 
the  people  at  the  yearly  festival  of  the  tabernacles.  In  this 
text  Shiloh  seems  by  a  literal  reading  to  refer  to  a  man,  but 
no  literal  meaning  can  be  applied  to  any  of  these  allegories. 
Other  texts  of  the  scripture  show  that  Shiloh  is  referred  to  as 
a  place  where  an  altar  is  set  up  and  the  people  gather  around 
it.  This  festival  always  followed  in  proper  time  after  the  sun 
had  passed  from  the  constellation  of  the  lion,  which  in  the 
Jewish  astrology  was  the  constellation  of  Judah.  One  of  these 
predictions  was  made  by  Balaam,  whose  ass  held  a  conversation 
with  him.  In  Genesis  there  are  two  accounts  which  say  that 
animals  talked  with  people,  the  serpent  with  Eve,  and  the  ass 
with  Balaam.  In  both  instances  the  sun  was  passing  through 
the  stars  which  had  the  names  of  Ass  and  Serpent.  In  celestial 
allegories  the  sun  makes  all  the  animals  talk  or  do  some  thing 
while  it  is  passing  in  front  of  them.  Although  Judas  and  his 
followers  had  begun  to  interpret  the  scriptures,  they  did  not 
receive  any  encouragement  from  the  high  priest  or  any  of  his 
council.  The  example  set  by  Judas  of  ignoring  the  authority 
of  the  high  priest,  as  the  interpreter  of  the  law  and  the  prophets, 
spread  rapidly  and  was  the  cause  of  all  the  misfortune  that  befell 
the  Jewish  people. 

That  the  high  priest,  his  council  and  all  those  called  prophets, 
understood  the  esoteric  meaning  of  all  the  allegorical  histories 
contained  in  the  Old  Testament,  it  would  be  most  illogical 
to  doubt,  therefore  when  their  attention  was  called  to  the  parts 
of  the  scripture  that  Judas  and  his  followers  were  interpreting 
to  their  own  destruction  and  that  of  a  large  part  of  the  Jewish 
people,  they  did  all  they  could  to  stem  the  tide  of  revolution 


Man  and  the  Earth  93 

until  the  life  of  Judaism  was  at  stake.  Although  we  have  very 
little  knowledge  of  what  transpired  in  Judea  during  the  time 
on  which  we  are  now  entering  outside  of  the  fairly  honest  history 
of  Josephus,  yet  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  he  was  a  Jew 
of  the  strictest  order,  with  all  the  prejudice  of  a  pharisee,  and 
also  very  superstitious  for  a  man  of  his  intelligence  and  general 
ability.  However,  Josephus  at  about  the  time  that  is  now  called 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  acknowledges  the  existence 
of  a  Jewish  sect  of  which  he  says  that  Judas  a  Galilean  was  the 
founder.  Goethe,  one  of  the  greatest  intellects  that  the  earth 
has  yet  produced  as  a  poet,  philosopher  and  a  scientist,  says 
in  one  of  his  aphorisms,  "  The  Christian  religion  is  an  inten- 
tional political  revolution  which  after  having  failed  became 
moral."  From  the  time  that  Judas  set  up  the  standard  of 
revolt,  until  the  destruction  of  the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  and  the 
capture  of  John  and  Simon,  the  faction  that  these  two  men 
represented  never  ceased  to  believe  that  they  would  finally  be 
victorious  until  the  Roman  army  under  Titus  had  entered  the 
city  of  Jerusalem.  Josephus  does  not  give  these  men  the  credit 
they  deserve  as  heroes  and  patriots.  Having  been  forgiven  for 
his  own  youthful  patriotic  spirit  which  was  caused  by  the  open 
spirit  of  rebellion  that  was  pervading  the  masses  throughout 
Samaria,  Galilee,  and  Judea,  his  failure  ended  his  interest  in 
the  cause  of  emancipation. 

For  a  long  time  before  the  Roman  army  had  taken  possession 
of  what  was  left  of  Jerusalem,  Simon  and  John  were  the  gen- 
erals of  the  Jews  who  defended  the  city  and  temple  against 
the  Roman  army.  No  inducement,  persuasion  or  antagonism 
of  either  friend  or  enemy  could  make  either  of  them  think  it 
judicious  or  right  to  give  up  the  fight  against  the  Romans,  and 
at  last  Josephus  seems  to  have  discovered  the  ground  on  which 
their  hope  of  ultimate  success  was  based.  The  prediction  of 
Balaam,  which  was  cited  at  the  beginning  of  the  seditious  pro- 
ceedings was  the  basis  of  that  hope.  Even  when  murder,  star- 
vation, disease  and  physical  weakness  had  rendered  the  de- 
fenders of  the  city  useless  as  soldiers,  those  who  kept  the  city 
to  the  last  day  from  surrendering,  believed  that  the  Lord  would 
send  some  one  who  would  defeat  the  Romans  and  after  that 
establish  a  kingdom  of  the  Jews  that  would  rule  the  world. 
Josephus  has  not  given  those  men  any  credit  at  all.  There  were 


94  Modernism 

barbarous  and  inhuman  actions  as  might  be  expected  under 
such  circumstances.  Josephus  says :  "  What  did  most  elevate 
them  in  undertaking  this  war,  was  an  ambiguous  oracle  that 
was  found  in  their  sacred  writings,  how  about  this  time  one 
from  their  own  country  should  be  the  governor  of  the  whole 
habitable  earth;  so  the  Jews  took  this  prediction  to  belong  to 
themselves  in  particular,  and  many  wise  men  were  thereby 
deceived  in  their  determination;  now  this  oracle  certainly  de- 
noted the  government  of  Vespasian,  who  was  appointed  em- 
peror in  Judea."  When  this  suggestion  of  Josephus  was  known 
at  a  later  time,  than  the  election  of  Vespasian  emperor  while 
he  was  in  Judea,  it  caused  much  excitement,  but  when  Vespasian 
had  returned  to  Rome  he  attended  the  festival  which  had  been 
established  as  acknowledgment  of  Augustus  as  the  Messiah. 
Previously  Titus  with  several  thousand  prisoners  started  for 
the  city  of  Rome;  here  Vespasian  joined  him,  and  Simon,  the 
general-in-chief  of  the  Jewish  warriors  was  beheaded,  and  John, 
the  second  in  command  was  banished  for  life  to  the  Isle  of 
Patmos.  A  large  number  of  the  prisoners  were  sold  into  slav- 
ery. Some  of  the  Jews  who  had  escaped  from  Judea,  fled  to 
Egypt  and  began  to  incite  the  Egyptian  Jews  to  revolt  against 
the  Romans.  Fearing  that  they  might  be  classed  with  the 
rebels,  as  these  had  already  killed  some  of  the  Alexandrian 
Jews  with  whom  they  were  disputing,  the  president  of  the 
Jewish  organization,  called  an  assembly  of  the  Alexandrian 
Jews  and  depicted  to  them  the  danger  they  were  in  by  allowing 
the  rebels  to  raise  tumults  in  their  community.  After  the 
assembly  adjourned,  the  Alexandrian  Jews  captured  the  rebels 
and  turned  them  over  to  the  Roman  officers.  As  a  number 
of  the  rebels  had  gone  to  other  parts  of  Egypt,  the  Roman 
governor  captured  them  all  and  put  them  to  the  torture,  men, 
women  and  children.  They  were  asked  to  acknowledge  the 
emperor  as  their  lord,  their  ruler,  but  not  a  man,  woman  or 
child  would  make  such  an  acknowledgment,  and  of  course 
they  were  all  executed.  This  made  a  deep  impression  on  very 
many  of  the  Alexandrian  Jews,  and  caused  quite  a  commotion 
among  them.  The  Roman  governor  fearing  an  outbreak  of 
the  whole  community,  communicated  his  fears  to  the  emperor, 
who  ordered  the  temple  of  Onias,  which  was  in  many  respects 
patterned  after  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  closed.  This  temple 


Man  and  the  Earth  95 

had  been  built  about  three  hundred  years  before  that  time  by 
a  wealthy  Jew  named  Onias.  Seeing  that  their  allegiance  to 
the  government  of  Rome  did  not  avail  them  much,  as  their 
temple  was  closed,  many  of  the  Alexandrian  Jews  went  to  Rome. 
In  this  great  populous  city  and  the  city  of  Antioch,  foreigners 
did  not  attract  much  attention  if  they  did  not  make  themselves 
conspicuous.  After  things  had  quieted  down,  from  the  excite- 
ment caused  by  the  triumphant  entry  of  the  Roman  army  and 
its  Jewish  prisoners  of  war,  in  the  inauguration  of  the  new  em- 
peror and  the  festivities  that  followed,  the  Jewish  war  was  soon 
forgotten  by  the  pleasure-loving  Romans;  but  the  Jewish  slaves 
who  found  themselves  in  a  foreign  land,  felt  the  humiliation  of 
their  position  with  sorrowful  hearts. 

There  were  many  Jews  in  Rome  and  the  other  principal 
cities  of  the  empire.  These  had  the  greatest  sympathy  for  their 
heroic  brethren.  In  time  many  of  the  slaves  through  good  con- 
duct were  liberated  and  taken  into  the  service  of  their  masters 
at  the  usual  rate  of  wages  for  the  kind  of  service  they  per- 
formed. Gradually,  nearly  all  of  them  who  had  been  brought 
to  Rome  found  their  way  to  the  synagogues  which  were  in  the 
poorest  part  of  the  city.  Their  religious  meetings  were  mourn- 
ful affairs  as  they  never  ceased  to  rehearse  the  incidents  con- 
nected with  their  war  for  independence.  Every  one  who  played 
a  prominent  part  in  that  war  was  spoken  of  in  terms  of  praise 
mingled  with  sorrow;  the  valor  and  generalship  of  Simon,  who 
was  brought  to  Rome  in  chains,  only  to  be  executed  at  trie 
end  of  his  journey;  and  John,  the  second  in  command,  who  was 
doomed  to  end  his  life  as  a  prisoner  on  the  Isle  of  Patmos,  and 
others  who  had  fought  and  bled  and  suffered  starvation  at  the 
siege  of  Jerusalem.  The  dead  were  spoken  of  with  veneration. 
And  although  they  were  disappointed  on  account  of  the  Mes- 
siah failing  to  come  to  their  assistance,  their  faith  was  not  quite 
dead,  as  he  might  come  yet,  as  the  condition  of  the  Jews  was 
worse  now  than  it  had  ever  been  before. 


96  Modernism 


PREFACE  OF  SILAS  THE  MONK  WHO  HAD  BEEN 
AT  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM  TO  THE  STORY 
OF  JOHN  THE  PRESBYTER  ABOUT  JESUS  AND 
THE  CHRISTIAN  BROTHERHOOD. 

When  the  numbering  of  the  people  of  Judea  had  been  fin- 
ished under  Cyrenius,  a  per  capita  tax  was  laid  on  the  country 
and  the  Jewish  authorities  had  to  collect  or  make  up  enough 
to  pay  the  assessment.  Judas  of  Galilee  and  some  others  pub- 
licly declared  they  would  not  pay  the  tribute,  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  unlawful  to  pay  tribute  to  any  foreigner  or  to  call 
any  man  lord.  In  time,  they  organized  a  sect  which  was  called 
the  Galileanites,  but  Joazer,  the  high  priest  induced  the  great 
majority  to  pay  the  tax.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  motives 
of  the  founders  of  the  sect,  in  a  short  time  the  leaders  of  it  only 
used  its  watchword  for  the  purpose  of  provoking  a  revolt  against 
the  Romans.  The  high  priests  and  the  ruling  class  still  favored 
the  payment  of  the  tax  and  the  Galileanites  did  not  make  much 
headway.  Then  they  began  to  use  all  sorts  of  reproachful  lan- 
guage about  the  rulers,  calling  them  cowards  and  other  vile 
names;  but  the  rulers  still  rode  rough  shod  over  the  multitude. 
The  pharisees,  the  scribes  and  all  the  higher  class  thought  only 
of  gaining  power  and  of  making  money.  But  during  the  last 
year  of  Pilate's  procuratorship,  a  man  who  was  called  a  zealot, 
named  Jesus,  who  was  versed  in  the  law  of  the  Jews,  who  had 
obtained  secret  knowledge  of  the  shortcomings  of  many  of  the 
high  priests  and  the  pharisees,  did  much  to  destroy  the  influ- 
ence of  the  rulers  by  going  out  on  the  public  places  on  Sabbath 
afternoons  and  making  speeches  criticising  many  of  them  and 
denouncing  their  illegal  acts,  their  hypocrisy,  their  several  ways 
for  fleecing  the  public  and  oppressing  the  poor. 

His  speeches  aroused  indignation  against  them,  among 
those  who  were  honest  and  the  multitude  of  the  poorer  sort. 
The  high  priest  and  the  pharisees  were  furious  and  tried  to 
get  Pilate  to  stop  his  talking,  so  Pilate  set  spies  upon  the  man 
to  find  if  he  used  any  words  which  would  show  that  he  wanted 
the  people  to  revolt  or  any  reproachful  language  about  his  gov- 


Preface  of  Silas  the  Monk  97 

ernment,  but  the  spies  reported  that  he  did  not.  But  the  high 
priest  insisted  that  he  was  using  the  public  places  on  the 
Sabbath  day  when  people  were  idle  and  such  desecration  of  the 
Sabbath  should  be  prevented,  so  Pilate  ordered  one  of  his 
captains  to  disperse  the  meetings.  This  was  done  by  the  soldiers 
beating  the  people  on  the  back  with  the  back  of  their  swords 
on  the  next  Sabbath  afternoon.  Jesus  then  gave  out  that  as 
the  rulers  were  opposed  to  them  quietly  meeting  in  the  public 
places  in  Judea,  that  on  the  next  Sabbath  afternoon  he  would 
go  into  Samaria  and  up  on  the  mountain,  and  as  there  would 
likely  be  a  very  large  number  of  Jews  there,  some  of  them 
might  have  a  chance  to  find  the  sacred  vessels  that  were  sup- 
posed to  have  been  put  in  some  of  the  caves  in  the  mountain. 
The  high  priest  Caiaphas  when  he  heard  this  announcement, 
warned  Pilate  that  he  had  let  this  man  go  too  long  without 
taking  him  off,  for  he  was  now  sure  that  when  he  would  get 
a  great  number  of  the  people  together  that  he  would  incite  them 
to  revolt,  then  they  would  come  down  and  rush  on  his  soldiers 
and  destroy  them. 

This  speech  of  Caiaphas  frightened  Pilate,  and  to  prevent 
Jesus  from  making  the  speech,  Pilate  sent  all  his  horse  and 
foot  men  up  on  the  mountain  with  orders  to  attack  and  kill 
every  one  they  could  catch.  So  they  killed  a  great  many  and 
Jesus  was  among  the  number  killed.  As  the  affair  had  taken 
place  in  Samaria  and  a  great  many  Samaritans  were  killed, 
through  the  protest  of  the  Samaritans  and  the  Jews  whose 
friends  were  killed,  Pilate  was  sent  in  disgrace  to  Rome  to  be 
tried  for  murder  and  Caiaphas  was  expelled  from  the  office  of 
high  priest.  Because  this  man  had  been  called  a  zealot  and 
had  played  the  part  of  a  reformer,  the  Galileanites  and  others 
now  formed  a  party  called  the  Zealots  and  never  ceased  criti- 
cising and  denouncing  the  pharisees  and  the  rulers  generally. 
The  spirit  of  revolution  continued  to  grow  daily  through  Judea 
and  Samaria  and  the  Jewish  authorities  kept  growing  weaker 
as  a  moral  force. 

Finally  some  public  character  among  the  sect  of  the  Essenes 
gave  out  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  pre- 
diction in  the  scriptures  for  the  appearance  of  the  liberator  or 
promised  one.  This  went  through  the  country  like  wild  fire, 


98  Modernism 

and  every  man  who  was  at  all  fired  with  patriotic  zeal  com- 
menced to  look  about  for  a  following.  Every  conceited,  am- 
bitious fighter  in  Judea,  had  hopes  that  he  might  be  the  prom- 
ised one.  Herod  had  fortified  all  the  strong  places  in  the  coun- 
try and  had  laid  up  arms,  corn,  oil  and  wine  in  many  of  them. 
Jerusalem  had  been  made  almost  impregnable,  and  the  wild 
enthusiasts  had  made  themselves  believe  that  no  power  in  the 
world  could  ever  take  that  city  if  its  walls  were  manned  by 
resolute  men.  Others  believed  that  God  would  protect  the 
temple  from  the  desecration  of  a  foreign  foe  to  the  end  of  time. 
There  were  prophecies  among  the  Jews  that  the  temple  would 
proudly  stand  to  the  day  of  judgment. 

All  these  things  combined  inflated  the  minds  of  the  ambitious 
spirits  of  revolt.  Some  of  the  sons  of  the  rulers  were  smitten 
with  the  spirit  of  revolt.  Eleazar  the  son  of  one  of  the  high 
priests  who  was  governor  of  the  temple,  thinking  he  might 
have  a  chance  to  be  selected  to  take  supreme  command,  al- 
though not  a  zealot,  but  in  order  to  gain  a  following  of  that 
party  and  other  revolutionists,  refused  to  allow  the  sacrifice 
or  offering  of  the  emperor.  This  immediately  brought  to  his 
support  a  large  following  of  young  men,  some  of  them  sons 
of  the  ruling  class.  Manahem,  one  of  the  sons  of  Judas  of 
Galilee,  two  of  whose  brothers,  Simon  and  James,  had  been 
crucified  before  the  revolt  commenced,  being  an  adroit  talker, 
succeeded  in  gaining  quite  a  good  following  shortly  after  the 
performance  of  Eleazar.  His  father  and  two  brothers  having 
suffered  for  the  cause  excited  sympathy  for  him  also.  His 
cousin  Eleazar,  son  of  Jarias  gave  him  great  assistance.  Taking 
his  followers  with  him  he  went  to  the  fortress  of  Masada  and 
slew  the  guard,  entered  the  armory  where  he  and  his  friends 
armed  themselves.  He  put  on  the  king's  royal  robes  and  put 
a  diadem  on  his  head,  then  returned  to  Jerusalem.  When  he 
and  his  friends  marched  to  the  temple,  Eleazar  the  governor, 
called  his  friends  about  him  and  then  he  tongue-lashed  Manahem 
as  an  upstart,  and  told  him  if  the  Jews  were  going  to  have  a 
king  that  he  would  be  the  last  one  who  would  be  selected. 
So  Eleazar  and  every  one  in  sight  threw  stones  at  Manahem 
and  his  followers  and  dispersed  them.  Manahem  ran  away  and 
hid  himself,  but  Eleazar  determined  to  give  him  no  chance  of 


Preface  of  Silas  the  Monk  99 

continuing  his  royal  pretentions,  so  they  hunted  him  up  and 
killed  him.  Eleazar  thought  that  Manahem  was  too  low  in  the 
social  scale  to  put  on  such  airs. 

This  was  only  the  first  illustration  of  the  madness  of  the 
revolters.  But  Eleazar  would  soon  meet  a  man  that  knew  how 
to  conform  his  conduct  to  his  surroundings  and  who  would 
make  the  governor  of  the  temple  acknowlege  his  inferiority. 
In  time,  John  of  Gischala  with  quite  a  large  number  of  his 
friends  got  into  Jerusalem.  John  was  the  most  subtile  poli- 
tician in  Judea  as  well  as  a  good  fighter.  If  he  had  not  entered 
Jerusalem,  that  city  would  probably  have  been  delivered  to  the 
Romans  without  a  siege.  Through  his  eloquence  and  diplo- 
macy, he  soon  gained  a  very  large  following  in  the  city,  and 
finally  got  possession  of  the  Temple  and  the  King's  palace. 
The  great  fight  for  supremacy  soon  commenced  in  earnest. 
Every  prominent  man  in  the  revolt  believed  he  was  qualified 
to  act  as  supreme  commander  and  to  defeat  the  Romans.  The 
settled  conviction  among  them  was,  that  the  man  who  would 
be  able  to  cut  off  all  his  competitors  would  obtain  thereby 
supreme  command,  conquer  the  Romans  and  at  least  become 
absolute  king  of  the  Jews.  As  remarked  before,  all  the  leaders 
believed  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  Romans  to  take 
Jerusalem  as  long  as  the  walls  were  protected.  And  to  prevent 
the  failure  of  guarding  trie  walls,  the  gates  were  strictly  guarded 
to  prevent  those  Jews  who  were  opposed  to  them  from  getting 
out  of  the  city.  They  determined  to  kill  off  all  their  opponents 
who  had  any  influence  over  the  people,  so  that  the  multitude 
being  without  leaders  of  any  kind,  would  eventually  become 
defenders  of  the  city. 

As  each  one  hoped  to  be  the  final  supreme  commander,  this 
scheme  of  preventing  all  the  able-bodied  men  from  leaving  the 
city  was  carried  out.  When  the  great  storehouse  of  corn  was 
burnt  up,  Simon  was  going  to  withdraw  and  leave  the  city  to 
the  mercy  of  John,  but  those  who  were  animated  with  patriotic 
affections  prevailed  on  him  to  remain.  All  except  John  tendered 
him  the  supreme  command.  John  refused.  Then  Eleazar,  one 
of  his  captains,  got  up  in  the  temple  above  John  and  pelted 
him  with  stones  and  arrows  while  Simon's  men  fought  him  in 
front;  finally  John  surrendered  on  condition  that  Simon  would 


ioo      .  Modernism 

take  the  oath  of  the  Zealots,  which  he  did.  Then  Simon  was 
declared  Prince  of  Israel  and  supreme  commander.* 

Titus  now  discovered  that  the  Jews  were  working"  more 
systematically  and  became  more  prudent  in  his  operations. 
But  the  city  was  soon  starved  into  subjection  as  men  cannot 
stand  much  work  on  empty  stomachs.  The  city  was  finally 
stormed  and  many  of  the  men  slaughtered.  John  and  Simon 
were  made  prisoners  of  war,  Simon  was  executed  and  John 
was  transported  for  life  to  the  Isle  of  Patmos.  After  Titus  had 
taken  Jerusalem  he  regarded  the  war  as  closed,  but  he  left 
a  small  part  of  his  army  in  Judea  to  finish  up  the  work.  It 
was  not  easy  to  guard  so  large  a  number  of  prisoners  as  he 
was  taking  to  Rome,  and  many  of  them  escaped  and  lost  no 
time  in  returning  to  Judea.  When  they  informed  those  they 
met  that  Titus  had  given  exhibitions  in  the  theatres  on  his  way, 
in  which  many  of  the  Jews  were  slaughtered  by  wild  beasts  and 
gladiators,  and  that  the  Roman  soldiers  were  misusing  and 
corrupting  the  wives  and  daughters  of  the  prisoners,  Eleazar, 
cousin  of  Manahem,  who  escaped  to  Masada  when  Manahem 
was  killed,  hearing  the  stories  of  the  escaped  prisoners,  ad- 
mitted about  a  thousand  men,  women  and  children  into  the 
fortress.  The  fortress  was  attacked  by  the  Roman  general  and 
when  Eleazar  found  that  they  could  not  keep  the  Romans  out 
he  made  a  strong  and  convincing  speech  to  the  people  on  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  and  the  misery  that  would  overtake 
them  if  they  permitted  the  Romans  to  capture  them  alive.  His 
speech  made  such  a  profound  impression  that  they  all  sub- 
mitted to  be  killed  with  their  own  hands  sooner  than  deliver 
themselves  to  the  Roman  general.  Nine  hundred  and  sixty 
died  in  this  awful  slaughter.  Two  women  and  five  children  had 
crept  into  one  of  the  caves  and  thus  preserved  their  lives. 

The  account  of  this  calamity  in  Judea,  and  what  befell  those 
who  had  fled  to  Egypt,  in  a  short  time  was  brought  to  the 


*The  infallible  evidence  that  Simon  was  declared  Prince  of  Israel  is 
manifested  in  the  coins  that  were  struck  in  Jerusalem  during  the  siege  of 
that  city  by  Titus.  There  have  been  found  silver  and  bronze  pieces  with 
the  name  of  Simon  Prince  of  Israel.  Also  shekels  with  the  name  of 
Simon.  The  obverse  type  of  a  gate  of  the  temple  and  on  the  reverse  a 
bundle  of  branches  and  a  citron,  symbols  of  the  feast  of  the  tabernacles, 
which  was  observed  during  the  seige,  the  last  time  that  the  Jews  observed 
that  feast  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem.  The  coins  discredit  to  some  extent 
the  bad  character  that  Josephus  has  given  Simon  and  John. 


Preface  of  Silas  the  Monk  1,0  T. 

knowledge  of  those  who  had  been  brought,  -tfr'Rom^  by  'Titos'. 
When  they  thought  of  all  the  tribulations  that  had  been  the 
result  of  the  revolt,  the  manner  in  which  they  had  been  treated 
by  the  high  priests  and  pharisees,  who  did  everything  they  could 
to  betray  them,  their  hatred  of  the  ruling  classes  was  a  thousand 
times  greater  than  that  which  they  bore  to  the  Romans.  With 
this  cause  of  oppression  on  their  minds,  and  being  prescribed 
and  persecuted  where  they  lived,  their  meetings  in  the  Roman 
synagogues  were  woeful  affairs.  Simon  had  a  little  son  named 
Simon  who  traveled  with  the  prisoners  to  Rome  so  that  he 
could  see  his  father.  Simon  having  been  informed  by  a  Roman 
captain  that  he  was  going  to  be  executed  when  he  reached 
Rome,  placed  the  boy  in  the  hands  of  a  friend  named 
Bartholomew  and  asked  him  to  take  care  of  him.  Bartholomew 
was  bought  by  an  Augustine  priest  named  Cepheus  Linus, 
who  permitted  the  boy  to  stay  in  his  house.  Seeing  that  the 
boy  was  very  intelligent  he  gave  him  a  good  education.  In  a 
short  time  he  became  an  excellent  Greek  scholar  and  Bartholo- 
mew taught  him  to  read,  write  and  speak  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage fluently.  The  boy  had  from  his  infancy  spoken  the  com- 
mon language  of  the  Jews. 

In  time  the  Zealots  who  were  among  the  prisoners  of  war 
in  Rome  established  three  synagogues.  The  first  one  was 
established  by  the  more  prominent  men  of  the  sect.  Bartholo- 
mew was  one  of  the  organizers  of  this  synagogue,  and  he  always 
took  young  Simon  with  him  to  prayers.  The  Augustine  priest 
whom  Bartholomew  served,  became  much  interested  in  the  Jews 
through  conversation  with  Bartholomew.  He  told  the  priest 
that  their  sacred  books  predicted  that  some  great  man  would 
liberate  the  Jews,  and  that  he  would  make  their  kingdom  greater 
than  it  ever  was  before,  but  the  result  of  the  war  proved  that 
the  man  who  expounded  the  prediction  had  mistaken  the  times. 
Cepheus  had  made  his  house  a  meeting  place  where  he  and  six 
other  priests  of  the  Augustan  Order  frequently  met  to  talk  of  their 
own  affairs.  The  reason  why  they  were  so  friendly  with  each 
other  was  that  they  had  been  students  of  the  philosopher  Epic- 
tetus.  The  temples  that  had  been  erected  for  the  special  wor- 
ship of  Augustus,  had  for  some  time  been  losing  their  patron- 
age, as  that  came  from  the  emperors  and  their  nearest  friends. 
It  was  this  condition  of  things  which  caused  these  seven  priests, 


yc?  Modernism 

who  \vere  Greeks  either  by  birth  or  parentage,  to  think  of 
making  some  provision  for  the  future,  as  it  was  evident  to 
them  that  the  Messiahship  of  Augustus  was  a  failure,  and  this 
was  brought  about  mostly  by  the  emperors  who  followed  him, 
seeking  deification  also.  At  last,  when  the  emperor  Nerva  had 
declared  that  he  would  not  accept  such  honors  or  permit  statues 
to  be  erected  to  him,  they  said  this  act  of  Nerva  shows  that 
no  emperor  should  have  been  deified,  and  when  the  people 
realize  this  truth,  there  will  not  be  an  Augustan  altar  in  Rome. 
Augustus  brought  peace  on  earth  and  good  will  among  nations 
as  our  hymns  declare,  during  one  generation.  He  established 
an  era  which  is  likely  to  be  observed  as  long  as  the  empire 
lasts,  and  many  other  valuable  reforms,  but  the  time  will  very 
soon  come  when  we  will  either  have  to  get  our  temples  dedicated 
to  some  of  the  other  gods,  or  try  to  establish  a  new  system 
of  worship;  this  was  their  unanimous  conclusion.  They  finally 
resolved  to  imitate  the  Jews  in  heroism,  to  adopt  the  philosophy 
of  Epictetus  as  far  as  possible,  and  to  select  a  pattern  for  the 
new  religion. 

At  that  time  there  was  no  one  who  seemed  to  have  any  hopes 
for  relief  from  their  misfortunes  by  the  help  of  a  Messiah,  except 
the  despised,  broken-hearted  and  prescribed  Jews  who  had  been 
sold  as  slaves  in  the  Roman  markets  and  who  were  now  meet- 
ing in  a  sorrowful  condition  in  their  synagogues,  and  the 
prisoners  of  war  of  other  nations  who  were  also  sold  as  slaves. 
Four  of  the  Augustine  priests  referred  to,  had  Jewish  man 
servants.  These  servants  had  taught  the  priests  to  sympathize 
with  the  Jews  and  to  visit  their  synagogues  occasionally.  They 
paid  physicians  to  attend  to  those  who  were  sick. 


An  educated  young  Jew  who  had  spent  two  years  in  Alex- 
andria, came  to  Rome  in  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Domitian 
whose  name  was  John.  Many  years  afterwards  he  was  called 
John  the  Apostate  by  the  pharisees  and  John  the  Presbyter  by 
the  Christians.  The  Apocalypse  was  written  by  him,  the  second 
part  of  which  was  suggested  by  the  Jewish  war  or  revolt  under 
the  high  priest  Akiba  and  Simon  bar  Cochebas.  The  author 
of  the  tale  was  a  schoolmate  and  youthful  companion  of  John 


Man  and  the  Earth  103 

named  James,  who  repeated  it  in  a  religious  discussion  with 
Silas  the  Monk,  a  teacher  of  boys.  Shortly  after  John  arrived 
in  Rome  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Josephus,  who  induced 
him  to  act  as  agent  for  the  sale  of  his  histories.  While  acting 
in  this  capacity  he  got  on  friendly  terms  with  the  founders  of 
the  Brotherhood,  which  happened  in  this  way.  While  John 
was  taking  his  daily  walk  to  men's  houses  at  which  Josephus 
advised  him  to  call,  he  met  a  man  who  was  standing  in 
front  of  a  house  near  a  temple  who  appeared  to  John  to 
be  a  Jew  and  he  saluted  him  in  the  language  of  his  own  coun- 
try. Finding  that  he  was  not  mistaken  they  entered  into  quite 
a  long  conversation,  during  which  John  informed  his  country- 
man of  the  business  he  was  engaged  in.  The  other  man 
remarked  to  John  that  he  had  heard  his  master  speak  of 
Josephus  and  that  he  might  wish  to  be  the  owner  of  one  of 
the  books,  so  he  brought  John  into  the  house  and  informed 
his  master,  that  a  young  man  whom  he  met  at  the  door  had 
books  of  Josephus  which  he  was  engaging  customers  for.  The 
master  of  the  house  was  Cepheus  Linus,  an  Augustine  priest. 
John  was  called  into  a  room  where  there  were  several  men 
sitting  around  a  table..  After  the  men  had  examined  the  books 
and  talked  to  John  about  Josephus,  Cepheus  and  one  of  his 
friends  agreed  to  take  two  copies  of  the  Antiquities  and  the 
Wars.  According  to  agreement  the  books  were  delivered  the 
next  day  at  the  price  which  John  was  in  the  habit  of  getting 
for  them.  When  John  called  on  that  day  there  were  seven  men 
present  who  were  priests  of  the  Augustan  cult.  The  young 
man  who  had  introduced  John  to  the  priests  was  Simon's  son. 
He  had  taught  his  adopted  father  the  common  language  of  the 
Jews  and  John  was  soon  engaged  to  teach  the  other  six  priests 
the  same  language  and  this  took  up  so  much  of  his  time  that 
he  gave  up  Josephus,  as  there  was  better  pay  in  teaching  the 
priests. 

When  John  'had  called  at  the  house  of  Cepheus  Linus  the 
seven  priests  referred  to  had  made  a  full  examination  of  the 
histories  of  all  the  gods  and  religious  cults  that  had  been 
known  in  Rome.  They  also  had  copies  of  the  Alexandrian 
version  of  the  Jewish  sacred  books.  In  their  examination  of 
the  other  religions,  they  discovered  that  what  did  most  con- 
vince people  of  the  truth  of  these  religions  were  the  accounts 


i  o  4  Modernism 

of  their  writers  that  the  gods  that  they  worshipped  performed 
prodigies  against  the  order  of  nature,  and  it  was  the  belief  of 
the  people  that  these  gods  did  these  wonderful  things  that  made 
them  believe  in  them.  As  the  success  of  their  undertaking  was 
not  to  be  overlooked  they  decided  that  the  hero  of  the  new 
religion  should  imitate  the  greatest  actions  of  all  the  gods  that 
had  been  worshipped  in  relation  to  miracles,  for  they  had 
determined  to  establish  a  new  religion.  These  things  had  all 
been  settled  and  such  a  history  as  Josephus  had  written  was 
all  they  were  waiting  for,  when  John  called  at  a  time  when  they 
most  needed  to  have  an  opportunity  to  examine  the  history 
of  the  Jewish  revolt  and  other  particulars.  Through  their  con- 
versation with  John  and  all  other  Jews  they  assumed  that  the 
Jewish  sect  of  the  Zealots  could  be  made  the  foundation  of  the 
new  religion,  although  it  should  be  liberal  enough  to  embrace 
the  poor  and  neglected  of  all  sects.  To  secure  the  help  and 
cooperation  of  the  Zealots  and  such  Jews  as  gloried  in  the 
revolt,  it  was  necessary  to  make  it  appear  to  them  that  the 
new  sect  was  established  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  the  heroes 
and  justify  the  acts  of  those  who  revolted  against  the  high 
priests  and  pharisees  as  well  as  the  Romans.  John,  who  was 
second  in  command  at  Jerusalem,  was  liberated  from  the  Isle 
of  Patmos  with  other  prisoners  when  Nerva  assumed  the  gov- 
ernment. He  was  immediately  taken  to  Rome  and  provided 
for  by  the  Augustine  priests.  When  he  was  informed  that  the 
movement  was  intended  to  perpetuate  their  memory  and  justify 
their  acts  and  condemn  the  high  priests  and  pharisees,  he  earn- 
estly lent  his  support  to  it.  Although  a  very  old  man,  he  was 
still  a  man  of  great  intellectual  power,  and  his  influence  was  of 
great  importance  among  the  Jewish  revolters  and  their  children. 
The  priest  who  was  appointed  to  confer  with  John  said  to  him 
as  it  was  necessary  for  them  all  to  stand  together  and  help  each 
other  at  all  times,  and  as  other  people  who  were  not  Jews  had 
joined  them  they  had  changed  the  name  from  Zealots  to  the 
Brotherhood,  meaning  that  although  of  different  nations  we  are 
all  brothers.  The  Zealots  had  taken  the  name  from  Jesus  who 
was  first  called  a  Zealot.  In  their  short  history  of  the  Brother- 
hood they  had  made  him  the  master.  He  said  to  him  that  all 
religions  that  have  ever  become  popular  were  properly  organ- 
ized at  first,  and  as  we  desire  that  ours  shall  live  and  become 


Man  and  the  Earth  105 

popular  we  have  organized  it  in  the  proper  way  laying  on  its 
foundation  twelve  pillars  as  the  religion  of  your  forefathers, 
so  we  have  twelve  apostles,  you  are  one  of  the  most  honor- 
able. The  others  are  Jews  like  yourself  although  some  of  them 
are  dead.  Simon's  little  son  who  came  to  Rome  was  adopted 
by  one  of  my  friends,  who  educated  him,  and  gave  him  his  own 
name,  Cepheus.  He  is  the  greatest  instructor  in  the  three 
synagogues.  He  is  so  kind  and  considerate  that  they  all  seem 
to  love  him.  When  any  of  them  is  sick  he  immediately  sends 
one  of  our  physicians  to  attend  him  or  her.  After  a  long 
struggle,  which  was  mostly  conducted  on  our  behalf  by  Cepheus. 
the  three  synagogues  took  up  some  of  our  forms.  After  being 
convinced  that  the  temple  would  never  be  rebuilt  in  Jerusalem, 
as  the  Roman  people  would  never  permit  it,  they  became 
satisfied  that  no  animals  would  ever  again  be  killed  as  sacrifices 
to  God.  So  they  adopted  a  simple  institution  that  was  used 
in  the  temple  where  I  and  the  other  six  priests  worshipped. 
At  the  end  of  trie  service  bread  and  wine  were  laid  on  the 
altar  or  table,  and  after  a  blessing  had  been  called  upon  it, 
all  the  people  in  the  temple  who  desired  to  do  so,  partook 
of  the  bread  and  wine.  This  was  called  the  Lord's  supper. 
In  the  three  synagogues  after  the  reader  has  finished  and  some 
one  has  given  instructions  a  hymn  is  sung,  then  one  of  the 
elders  blesses  the  bread  and  wine.  Frequently  a  brother  from 
one  of  the  other  synogagues  who  has  been  present  is  asked  to 
say  something,  or  some  of  the  brethren  of  the  synagogue  may 
know  of  some  one  who  needs  attention,  if  so  there  may  be  a 
discussion  about  it.  But  the  whole  service  is  very  beautiful. 
All  this  seemed  odd  to  John,  but  when  he  thought  of  the 
length  of  time  it  was  since  he  had  attended  a  festival  at  the 
temple  of  Jerusalem  he  laughed  about  it  and  said  may  be  the 
killing  of  animals  to  please  God  was  foolish  any  way.  But  to 
return  to  the  work  of  the  seven  priests,  after  they  had  read 
much  of  Josephus.  They  used  the  history  of  their  own  cult, 
that  is,  they  adopted  the  system  employed  by  the  founders  of 
the  religion  of  Serapis  at  Alexandria.  Serapis  was  a  composite 
character  created  from  the  histories  of  Mercury,  Hermes, 
Dionysius  and  Osiris.  He  represented  all  they  considered  valu- 
able in  the  biographies  of  these  four  gods.  According  to  the 
four  evangels  of  the  cult,  the  father  of  Serapis  was  Jove  the 


io  6       .  Modernism 

Supreme  and  Maia  was  his  virgin  mother,  the  star  indicated 
his  birthplace.  He  was  born  on  the  winter  solstice,  his  head 
was  rayed,  his  complexion  florid  and  his  hair  auburn.  He  per- 
formed numerous  miracles,  fasted  forty  days  and  was  tempted 
by  the  devil.  He  had  twelve  apostles,  was  persecuted  for  his 
religion  and  condemned  to  die  by  crucifixion.  He  was  crucified 
at  the  vernal  equinox,  buried  in  a  tomb  and  rose  again  from 
the  dead  and  ascended  to  heaven.  His  sepulchre  was  in  the 
Serapion  at  Alexandria.  The  cross  on  which  he  was  crucified 
contained  the  initials  I.  N.  R.  I.  which  in  his  case  meant  the 
life  to  come.  The  writers  who  performed  the  task  of  preparing 
the  history  on  which  the  deification  and  apotheosis  of  Augustus 
was  consummated,  had  all  the  world  to  gather  the  materials 
from,  which  when  completed  was  nearly  like  that  of  Serapis, 
therefore  the  Augustine  priests  did  not  have  to  make  a  new 
search,  it  was  only  necessary  to  apply  the  best  to  the  person 
they  substituted  for  Augustus,  in  their  evangels  or  gospels. 
As  Serapis  whom  they  had  for  their  model  was  a  composite 
character  made  up  of  four  former  gods,  it  was  necessary  to 
have  an  evangel  representing  each,  so  that  in  writing  the 
history  of  the  person  or  character  who  would  substitute  Serapis 
and  Augustus,  four  evangels  must  be  written  or  the  four 
evangels  of  Serapis  remodeled  to  contain  a  history  of  the  Jewish 
Messiah,  to  whom  they  gave  the  Greek  title  of  Christ.  As  the 
composite  character  of  the  Christ  must  be  drawn  from  the 
history  of  four  Jewish  individuals  who  lived  at  or  near  the 
time  of  the  apotheosis  of  Augustus,  the  pharisees  or  ruling 
class,  must  be  his  enemies.  To  make  a  true  history  according 
to  the  idea  adopted  by  the  Indian  philosophers  for  their  Avatars, 
the  biography  of  Christina  that  was  publicly  known  was  applied 
to  him,  which  is  as  follows: 

"  He  was  the  ninth  Avatar  or  incarnation  of  the  deity.  His 
mother  was  a  virgin  named  Mary  who  was  the  wife  of  a  vil- 
lage carpenter  named  Josa.  The  messianic  star  indicated  his 
birthplace.  He  was  born  on  the  winter  solstice  among  cow 
herds  or  shepherds,  in  a  cave.  The  nativity  was  ushered  in 
with  music  and  flowers  and  was  recognized  by  the  Magi  who 
presented  him  with  gifts  of  sandalwood  and  perfumes.  At  the 
time  of  his  nativity  his  putative  father  was  called  away  to  pay 
the  taxes.  His  head  shone  with  divine  effulgence.  A  slaughter 


Man  and  the  Earth  107 

of  the  innocents  was  ordered  by  King  Kansa,  with  the  object 
of  destroying  the  infant  Messiah,  who,  however  escaped.  He 
was  transfigured  and  performed  many  miracles.  The  doctrines 
which  he  preached  are  contained  in  the  Vedes  and  Puranes. 
These  caused  his  betrayal  and  death.  He  partook  of  a  last 
supper  with  his  ten  apostles  and  was  condemned  to  death  by 
Kansa.  He  was  crucified  on  a  nimb  tree  on  the  vernal  equinox 
in  the  thirty-third  year  of  his  age.  To  judge  the  dead  he 
descended  to  the  nether  world,  where  he  sojourned  for  three 
days  and  nights,  after  which  he  reappeared  upon  earth  only 
to  ascend  bodily  to  heaven.  His  principal  sacraments  were 
baptism  and  the  eucharist.  His  favorite  disciple  was  Arjoona, 
Jain  or  Jon.  He  fasted  forty  days.  At  his  death  the  sun  was 
eclipsed,  the  earth  shook  with  violent  commotion  and  ghosts 
stalked  the  highways.  The  sign  of  his  last  coming  will  be  as 
Kalpa,  mounted  on  a  white  horse." 

With  such  modifications  as  were  necessary,  this  life  of  Chris- 
tina was  applied  to  Augustus,  and  it  now  was  applied  with 
little  modification  to  the  Jewish  Messiah.  In  looking  over  the 
histories  from  which  they  hoped  to  get  the  information  they 
desired  to  build  the  composite  character,  they  found  that  the 
name  of  Jesus  figured  conspicuously  in  Jewish  history  at  the 
epoch  they  intended  or  must  use.  As  it  was  nearly  similar 
to  Jasius  Quirinus  and  some  of  the  titles  that  Augustus  had 
assumed  of  Dionysius  or  Bacchus,  they  decided  to  use  this 
name.  Four  things  were  absolutely  necessary.  It  must  be  shown 
that  he  was  a  preacher,  wonder  worker,  a  prophet  and  a  king, 
and  also  be  crucified.  The  four  characters  who  should  fill  these 
requirements  must  have  lived  near  enough  to  the  time  of 
Augustus,  so  that  the  circumstances  would  not  be  so  distant  as 
to  have  been  forgotten.  One  of  the  objects  sought  by  the  selec- 
tions was  that  the  historical  data  relating  to  each  of  them  would 
in  an  ambiguous  manner  indicate  that  any  one  of  them  might 
be  the  Jesus  referred  to  in  the  gospels.  Having  selected  the 
name  Jesus,  they  searched  for  the  men  whose  record  could 
be  applied  to  the  Messiah.  The  first  Jesus  they  found  in  the 
Talmud.  He  became  a  Nazarene,  went  to  Egypt  in  his  youth, 
studied  magic  and  the  art  of  healing.  He  was  called  a  wonder 
worker  and  was  crucified  on  the  eve  of  the  Passover  as  a 
wizard.  He  furnished  the  part  of  miracle  worker  to  the  Jesus 


io8      .  Modernism 

of  the  gospels.  A  man  who  was  making  public  speeches  dur- 
ing the  last  year  of  Pilate,  to  whom  we  have  referred  before 
who  was  killed  by  Pilate  at  the  solicitation  of  Caiaphas  the 
high  priest,  whom  Josephus  does  not  name  furnished  the  speech- 
making  Jesus. 

Another  Jesus  who  came  to  the  temple  a  long  time  before  the 
war  began  and  predicted  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  the 
temple  and  the  people  was  selected  to  furnish  the  part  of  prophet 
to  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels.  When  Mark  Anthony  invaded 
Judea  he  took  the  kingdom  away  from  Antigonus.  His  name 
was  not  Jesus,  but  he  claimed  to  be  king  of  the  Jews.  But 
the  name  Jesus  had  a  royal  significance.  When  he  was  turned 
over  to  Anthony  he  ordered  him  to  be  crucified  with  a  crown 
of  thorns  on  his  head  and  the  inscription  of  King  of  the  Jews 
placed  on  the  cross.  He  furnished  the  part  applied  to  Jesus 
as  King  of  the  Jews  who  was  crucified  with  a  crown  of  thorns 
on  his  head  and  the  other  matters  connected  with  it.  Many 
other  things  had  been  done  and  said  by  other  persons  of  the 
name  of  Jesus  during  that  period  which  were  said  to  have  been 
done  by  or  to  Jesus.  To  follow  their  pattern  they  selected 
twelve  apostles  from  among  the  Jews  who  had  been  members 
of  the  sect  of  the  Zealots.* 

In  creating  a  composite  character  which  they  desired  should 
be  believed  to  be  a  real,  living,  acting  historical  individual,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  appeal  to  history  for  confirmation  of 
their  ingenious  story.  But  to  offset  this  fact,  witnesses  were 
named  to  convince  the  ignorant  and  uncritical.  In  the  deifica- 
tion of  Augustus  his  divine  attributes  were  advanced  or  de- 
veloped in  four  distinct  journeys  or  steps.  First  as  high  priest 
or  Pontifex  Maximus  or  regulator  of  priestly  functions.  Then 
heir  to  the  founder  of  Rome  their  first  demi-god.  Then  as 
the  long  expected  Messiah,  as  declared  by  the  Roman  Senate 
and  then  as  the  son  of  God  equal  to  the  Creator,  to  whom 
their  prayers  were  directed.  In  the  same  manner  the  four 


*As  Josephus  had  not  mentioned  the  name  of  the  father  of  the  man 
he  calls  a  liar,  being  the  only  one  of  the  four  persons  selected,  they 
could  furnish  him  with  a  Joseph  father  and  a  virgin  mother  a  hundred 
years  after  all  who  knew  them  were  dead.  And  as  Josephus  did  not 
name  the  Baptist's  father  or  mother  they  could  make  them  part  of  the 
holy  family,  but  these  things  are  not  in  the  legend  to  which  I  must  con- 
fine myself. 


Man  and  the  Earth  109 

gospels  were  written  or  sketched,  for  they  were  not  fully  filled 
out  at  first.  In  the  first  he  called  himself  the  son  of  man. 
Then  his  genealogy  was  written  from  Adam.  He  had  been 
to  his  disciples  only  as  their  master  as  a  Zealot.  To  the  people 
who  became  members  of  the  communities  his  higher  attributes 
were  advanced  as  fast  as  they  were  capable  to  believe.  When 
a  large  number  had  been  for  a  good  while  listening  to  the 
preachers  and  when  all  the  old  men  were  dead  they  began 
to  preach  from  the  fourth  gospel.  At  first  none  of  the 
gospels  had  been  delivered  to  the  preachers.  They  received 
instructions  verbally  which  they  committed  to  memory  and  they 
preached  this  amount  of  the  gospel  adding  what  seemed  to 
them  connected  with  their  lesson.  An  outline  of  the  gospel 
was  given  in  a  discourse  to  all  candidates  for  teachers,  and 
discourses  were  written  out  which  they  were  obliged  to  re- 
hearse substantially  before  they  could  commence.  Up  to  the 
end  of  John's  life,  that  is  the  Presbyter,  nine-tenths  of  the 
preachers  were  practically  uneducated.  A  preacher,  besides  the 
honor  that  was  attached  to  the  office,  was  sure  of  making  a 
living  without  work.  When  twelve  young  Jews  who  had  be- 
come good  preachers  through  practice  in  the  Roman  syna- 
gogues, had  been  provided  with  means  to  travel  with  Simon's 
son,  Cepheus  at  their  head,  and  John,  who  became  a  Presbyter, 
as  his  secretary  and  treasurer,  they  started  for  Judea  by  way  of 
Alexandria,  where  they  made  their  first  stop  and  first  preached 
outside  of  Italy.  There  were  a  few  Zealots  there  who  joined 
them  and  they  made  several  converts  from  among  the  Essenes. 
Simon  or  Cepheus  had  been  thoroughly  instructed  by  the 
Agusdne  priests,  so  as  to  be  prepared  for  the  opposition 
of  the  leaders  of  the  several  sects  of  Alexandria,  and  he  made 
a  good  impression.  Finding  that  there  was  not  much  to  be 
gained  by  a  long  stay  there  they  started  for  Palestine.  They 
had  however  formed  one  small  community.  They  did  not  stop 
until  they  got  to  Judea  in  the  vicinity  of  Jerusalem.  Here  they 
commenced  to  preach,  sometimes  in  the  synagogues  at  other 
times  in  public  places.  When  they  had  founded  a  community 
here  of  Zealots  and  others,  they  then  founded  others  that  were 
composed  of  Essenes  entirely.  Being  advised  by  a  friend 
from  near  Babylon  to  go  there,  three  of  them  went  and  after 
a  week's  work  founded  a  community  there,  when  they  imme- 


no 


Modernism 


diately  returned  to  Judea.  After  doing  all  they  could  in  Judea 
they  went  into  Samaria,  where  they  were  well  received  and  did 
better  work  than  they  had  done  elsewhere  up  to  that  time. 
They  remained  three  years  in  Palestine  founding  small  com- 
munities in  every  city.  Saulus,  who  was  kin  to  one  of  the 
ruling  families,  who  during  the  times  of  trouble,  with  other 
young  rascals  of  the  same  class  had  committed  all  kinds  of 
depredations  on  the  poor  and  particularly  on  the  more  peace- 
able and  honest  of  the  Zealots,  had  heard  the  preachers  of 
the  Brotherhood  in  Alexandria  and  had  followed  them  to  Judea. 
Some  of  the  Gnostics  of  Alexandria,  who  had  heard  the 
preachers  of  the  Brotherhood  at  Rome,  had  taken  what  they 
understood  to  be  the  doctrines  of  the  Brotherhood  up  for 
examination  and  were  discoursing  on  the  subject  in  one  of 
their  meeting  places.  Saulus  had  heard  the  discourses  of  the 
speakers  and  was  thinking  seriously  about  joining  them  when 
Cepheus  and  his  companions  arrived  in  Alexandria.  After 
attending  the  preaching  of  the  Brotherhood  for  over  a  week, 
he  spoke  to  one  of  them  about  joining  them.  The  meetings 
of  the  Brotherhood  were  crowded  always  and  many  people 
could  not  get  inside  the  room,  therefore  they  held  most  of 
their  meetings  in  public  resorts.  Saulus  said  he  thought  he 
understood  their  doctrine  well  enough  to  make  a  public  teacner, 
but  he  was  informed  that  he  would  have  to  undergo  a  course 
of  instructions  in  order  to  receive  a  letter  which  would  entitle 
him  to  speak  on  behalf  of  the  Brotherhood.  Some  time  after 
this,  a  teacher  of  the  community  that  was  in  Damascus  heard 
about  a  man  who  was  called  Paul  who  did  not  belong  to  the 
community  teaching  in  that  city.  Making  inquiry  about  him 
it  was  discovered  that  he  claimed  that  he  was  converted  by 
Jesus  meeting  him  on  the  road  and  teaching  him  how  to  teach. 
The  brother  who  had  made  this  discovery  was  about  to  de- 
nounce Paul,  but  Cepheus  advised  him  to  let  Paul  alone  as  they 
had  no  power  to  stop  him,  but  no  member  of  the  Brotherhood 
should  have  anything  to  do  with  him  in  any  manner.  Now 
Cepheus  knew  that  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels  had  no  existence, 
therefore  Paul  was  a  liar.  Paul  did  not  know  anything  about 
the  foundation  of  the  Brotherhood,  but  he  was  smitten  with  a 
frenzy  to  preach,  and  did  not  want  to  take  directions  from  any 


Man  and  the  Earth  in 

one,  so  he  preached  a  gospel  of  his  own  which  was  mixed 
with  Gnosticism. 

In  the  second  year  of  the  Emperor  Marcus  Nerva  the  first 
teachers  of  the  Brotherhood  began  to  preach  in  the  city  of  Rome, 
from  which  circumstance,  it  was  called  the  Apostolic  City. 
Cepheus  had  been  chosen  president  of  the  Council  of  Seven,  and 
after  his  death  his  adopted  son,  the  son  of  Simon  took  his 
place.  During  the  seven  years  absence  from  Rome  of  Cepheus 
or  Simon,  the  other  six  priests  carried  on  the  instruction  of 
all  those  preparing  to  take  the  field  as  preachers.  During  the 
seven  years  that  Cepheus  was  in  the  east  they  had  established 
small  communities  in  Palestine  and  all  the  cities  near  the  sea 
and  on  the  lines  of  travel  from  Rome  returning  through  Mace- 
donia to  Rome.  Cepheus  had  been  continually  writing  to  the 
council  for  messengers  to  be  sent  to  him  with  such  money  as 
could  be  spared  and  for  well  instructed  men  to  help  in  holding 
the  established  communities  from  breaking  up.  Paul  in  the 
meantime  had  copied  the  government  of  the  Brotherhood  and 
had  established  communities  of  his  converts.  John  the  elder 
had  also  left  Rome  with  several  young  men  that  had  been  pre- 
pared for  the  work  but  he  only  got  as  far  as  Ephesus.  Cepheus 
and  three  of  the  men  who  started  from  Rome  made  quite  a 
stop  at  Ephesus.  Ephesus  became  a  centre  for  the  energetic 
work  of  John,  Cepheus  and  Paul.  As  John  was  the  most 
reverend  among  the  Brotherhood  on  account  of  his  great  age, 
his  diplomacy,  the  position  which  he  had  held  as  a  leading 
general  at  Jerusalem,  some  of  those  who  had  been  his  dis- 
ciples thought  that  he  ought  to  hold  the  place  of  greatest  honor, 
so  that  on  this  small  question  the  Brotherhood  came  near  bring- 
ing a  spirit  of  strife  in  their  ranks,  but  John  knowing  the  value 
of  unity  from  his  own  experience,  appealed  to  them  as  their 
ancient  brother  to  love  one  another  unceasingly.  The  great 
body  of  these  men  were  ignorant  and  if  they  had  been  recog- 
nized as  the  oracles  of  truth,  the  men  who  had  written  the 
gospels  and  who  had  not  given  a  single  official  copy  into  the 
hands  of  any  elder  yet  might  be  brushed  aside.  As  there  were 
a  large  number  of  spurious  gospels  afloat  which  many  of  them 
had  read  and  were  using  some  of  them,  these  gospels  could 
be  taken  up  and  made  official.  But  the  question  that  was 
raised  did  not  down  until  a  long  time  after  John's  death. 


ii2  Introduction 

When  the  gospels  could  not  be  withheld  any  longer,  Mark's 
was  first  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops,  then  came  Mat- 
thew's first,  which  went  to  the  east,  and  was  translated  into 
Hebrew,  then  Matthew's  second  gospel  was  issued.  Many 
things  contained  in  the  four  gospels  had  been  written  into  dis- 
courses for  the  instructors,  but  only  a  very  few  of  these  written 
discourses  were  ever  made  public.  Shorthand  writers  and  men 
who  had  good  memory  wrote  copies  which  were  called  gospels, 
by  putting  the  matter  of  two  or  three  discourses  into  one. 
Sometimes  putting  things  in  obtained  from  other  sources. 
When  a  gospel  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  bishop  he  had  to 
protect  it  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  enemies.  When  Cepheus 
got  back  to  Rome  after  seven  years'  absence  he  got  a  great 
reception.  Paul  had  followed  him  alone  intending  to  try  to 
get  his  friends  admitted  to  fellowship.  He  made  his  way  to 
the  Jewish  quarter  and  secured  lodgings  with  a  Jew  and  re- 
mained in  his  house  a  month.  He  was  informed  by  the  Jew 
that  a  man  who  was  an  important  member  of  the  synagogue 
close  by,  lived  a  few  doors  from  him  so  he  called  on  him. 
It  was  John  the  Presbyter.  Paul  informed  him  who  he  was 
and  how  he  came  to  be  converted.  Paul  had  met  Cepheus  in 
the  east  and  John  was  with  him,  but  on  account  of  the  im- 
portant position  which  Cepheus  held  in  the  Brotherhood  Paul 
had  not  paid  particular  attention  to  the  others  who  were  with 
him.  Of  course  John  had  heard  about  Paul's  story  in  the  east, 
but  he  said  nothing  to  Paul  about  it.  Paul  knew  that  his 
coming  was  known,  and  as  John  did  not  ask  him  to  partake 
of  refreshment  and  let  Paul  do  all  the  talking  and  did  not 
ask  him  to  go  with  him  to  any  of  the  houses  of  other  Jews 
or  give  him  any  welcome,  he  concluded  that  he  would  get 
no  welcome  from  any  of  them,  so  he  returned  nearly  broken- 
hearted. After  Cepheus  had  rested  and  made  his  report  he 
started  back  to  the  east  again  with  another  lot  of  instructed 
men.  He  went  back  the  way  he  returned  on  his  other  journey 
taking  John  with  him.  John  was  not  a  good  speaker,  but  he 
was  a  good  writer.  Cepheus  took  Mark  with  him  this  time  as 
his  secretary  and  letter  writer,  but  John  was  his  organizer. 
This  time  he  remained  five  years  in  the  east  and  when  he 
returned  he  commenced  to  go  through  Italy  to  see  how  the 
Brotherhood  was  doing  in  the  cities.  He  returned  at  the  end 


Man  and  the  Earth  113 

of  the  year,  and  as  the  Brotherhood  was  quite  strong  in  Rome 
they  bought  one  of  the  unused  Augustan  temples  and  Cepheus 
became  the  superintendent  of  this  house  and  also  the  first 
of  Rome,  under  the  name  of  his  adopted  father,  Linus. 
Fifteen  years  after  the  first  preachers  went  out  from  Rome,  it 
was  found  that  a  larger  number  of  gentiles  had  joined  the 
Brotherhood  than  of  Jews.  The  Roman  and  Greek  bishops 
began  to  think  that  it  was  injurious  to  the  cause  to  continue 
flattering  the  Jewish  revolters,  and  they  brought  the  matter  to 
the  attention  of  the  council  who  advised  them  to  begin  to  dis- 
own that  any  of  the  revolters  had  been  prominent  in  organizing 
their  communities.  John  and  all  the  older  Jews  who  had  been 
instrumental  in  influencing  the  Zealots  to  join  the  new  move- 
ment were  dead.  John  had  been  dead  many  years  when  the 
fourth  gospel  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops.  On 
account  of  his  great  popularity  it  was  given  out  that  he  had 
written  that  gospel  in  order  that  the  Jews  might  accept  it. 
Paul  had  worked  zealously  establishing  communities  against 
great  disadvantages  as  he  did  not  know  that  the  Zealots 
among  the  Jews  had  formed  a  religious  sect  and  that  they  had 
almost  entirely  gone  into  the  Brotherhood,  but  all  the  older 
Zealots  knew  Paul  and  they  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
him,  but  he  got  many  Jews  to  join  him.  As  he  grew  old  he 
became  infirm  and  Luke  the  physician  had  to  remain  with  him 
wherever  he  went.  He  had  insisted  on  his  converts  that  it 
was  necessary  to  put  themselves  under  restraint,  so  that  the 
edifying  lives  of  his  followers  would  shame  the  leaders  of  the 
Brotherhood  into  admitting  him  and  his  disciples  into  the  fold,  but 
none  of  the  means  he  used  for  that  purpose  accomplished  any- 
thing, and  this  had  helped  to  make  him  infirm  and  old. 

Luke  was  the  only  one  of  Paul's  followers  that  any  member 
of  the  Brotherhood  would  associate  with.  He  was  a  good 
physician  and  when  he  knew  of  any  of  the  Brotherhod  being 
sick  he  hastened  to  him  to  help  him.  He  was  of  a  happy  dis- 
position and  very  humorous,  so  that  no  member  of  the  Brother- 
hood could  bear  to  put  him  off.  Paul  had  ceased  traveling 
about  and  was  stopping  at  Ephesus  where  Luke  remained  with 
him  receiving  his  brethren  and  writing  letters  for  Paul.  Paul 
determined  to  make  one  more  effort  to  have  his  followers  ad- 
mitted to  the  Brotherhood  and  knowing  that  Cepheus  had  gone 


ii4  Modernism 

to  Rome  where  he  was  continually  sending  out  teachers — the 
Brotherhood  at  Alexandria  were  also  doing  the  same  work. 
He  therefore  got  some  money  and  he  and  Luke  started  for 
Rome.  He  told  those  who  came  to  him  that  he  was  feeling 
better  and  that  he  would  go  to  the  west  and  if  he  needed  any 
of  them  he  would  write  them  to  come  to  him.  He  gave  Luke 
directions  how  to  travel  and  when  they  got  to  Rome  he  told 
Luke  to  take  him  to  the  house  where  he  had  lodged  when  he 
was  there  before.  Luke  did  not  have  much  trouble  in  finding 
the  house  and  the  Jew  was  still  living  in  the  same  place.  When 
he  got  to  the  house  he  collapsed  and  had  to  go  to  bed.  The 
traveling  had  used  him  up,  but  the  desire  to  get  to  Rome 
sustained  him  until  he  was  at  the  end  of  his  journey.  Taking 
only  a  little  nourishment  from  time  to  time  he  died  at  the 
end  of  three  weeks.  As  he  had  no  friends  in  Rome,  during 
the  three  weeks  that  Paul  was  in  bed,  Luke  called  first  on  John 
the  Presbyter  whom  he  had  met  in  the  east  and  told  him  about 
Paul  and  that  he  was  going  to  die.  John  took  him  on  the  next 
Sabbath  to  the  new  synagogue  where  Cepheus  preached.  Luke 
stood  in  the  back  part  as  he  did  not  wish  to  let  himself  be 
known.  There  were  many  of  the  Brotherhood  in  Rome  who 
had  heard  of  Luke's  charitable  disposition  and  his  good  works. 
He  told  John  to  say  nothing  of  Paul's  arrival  nor  anything 
about  himself  at  present.  When  Paul  died  Luke  and  John 
called  on  Cepheus  and  imparted  to  him  the  fact.  Cepheus  called 
a  meeting  of  the  council  and  John  was  instructed  to  tell  Luke 
to  prepare  the  body  of  his  friend  for  burial.  The  council  con- 
cluded that  Paul's  followers  were  not  responsible  for  Paul's 
lies.  And  as  the  Brotherhood  was  now  being  attacked  on  many 
grounds  principally  by  Jewish  writers,  that  it  would  be  good 
to  have  all  the  communities  into  one  fold  so  that  they  could 
present  a  united  front  to  their  enemies.  Knowing  that  Luke 
would  inform  his  friends  of  what  they  did  for  Paul,  they 
made  as  great  a  funeral  as  the  laws  would  permit  and  buried 
Paul  with  much  ceremony.  Luke  had  made  it  his  business 
to  buy  every  one  of  the  many  spurious  gospels  and  other  writ- 
ings of  that  character  that  he  could  spare  money  for.  As  he 
and  John  were  on  very  friendly  terms  he  asked  him  if  he  had 
any  of  such  writings.  John  had  written  several  of  these  small 
books  himself  for  several  purposes  and  he  had  a  collection  of 


Man  and  the  Earth  115 

others  so  he  loaned  them  to  Luke.  He  had  a  very  dear  young 
friend  in  Antioch  whom  he  had  tried  to  convert,  but  as  Luke 
could  not  give  him  the  knowledge  he  wanted  he  had  not  suc- 
ceeded in  converting  him.  During  his  stay  in  Rome  through 
talk  with  John  principally  he  had  discovered  many  things  that 
were  new  to  him.  Paul's  followers  had  discovered  that  the 
superintendents  of  the  Brotherhood  communities  had  written 
evangels,  or  gospels  as  they  were  afterwards  called,  to  preach 
from,  and  this  give  them  great  advantage  over  Paul's  super- 
intendents, but  Paul  ridiculed  the  one  that  he  heard  of,  for 
dealing  in  senseless  genealogies  and  other  things  he  said  were 
foolish.  The  wise  ones  of  the  Brotherhood,  said  that  Paul's 
Jesus  was  the  phantom  Jesus  of  the  Gnostics  although  he  kept 
it  to  himself.  When  Paul  was  dead  and  could  no  longer  give 
his  followers  special  instructions,  they  began  to  feel  the  need 
of  such  a  book  as  the  Brotherhood  had.  Luke  had  heard  his 
friends  speak  about  this  matter  more  than  once,  and  concluding 
that  he  was  so  near  to  Paul  for  a  long  time,  that  they  would 
consider  an  epistle  from  him  which  would  contain  the  elements 
of  an  evangel  or  gospel  as  being  dictated  by  Paul,  or  at  least 
containing  the  substance  of  conversations  with  Paul  on  that 
subject.  So  using  the  spurious  gospels  and  his  own  knowledge 
he  wrote  the  espistle  to  his  young  friend  Theophilus  of  Antioch. 
After  a  consultation  with  Cepheus  and  John  he  departed  for 
Alexandria.  At  Alexandria  he  showed  the  epistle  he  had  written 
to  Theophilus,  to  a  friend  who  made  a  copy  of  it,  which  he 
began  to  use  as  a  gospel.  Luke  then  made  out  a  list  of 
Paul's  bishops  and  sent  a  messenger  into  Palestine  to  the  nearest 
bishop  with  directions  to  him  to  send  it  to  another  in  such 
a  way  that  the  last  person  to  receive  it  was  Theophilus  him- 
self. He  wrote  the  following  letter  to  all  the  bishops  of  Paul's 
brethren,  to  be  taken  with  the  epistle  to  Theophilus : 

"  Three  weeks  after  our  arrival  in  Rome  the  beloved  Paul 
fell  asleep  in  the  Lord,  and  was  buried  with  great  honor  by 
the  Brotherhood,  as  he  had  no  friends  here  to  perform  the 
sorrowful  office.  Cepheus  expressed  great  sorrow  at  the  funeral, 
because  of  the  strife  that  prevailed  between  the  brethren 
of  Paul  and  the  Brotherhood,  and  hoped  that  in  place  of  acting 
as  enemies  toward  each  other  that  they  would  become  friends 
all  working  together  in  the  one  fold  for  the  cause  of  Christ. 


1 1 6  Modernism 

Therefore  let  no  stumbling  block  stand  in  the  way  to  keep 
the  brethren  from  becoming  members  of  one  body  in  Christ 
Jesus.  Signed  Luke  the  physician  and  brother  of  Paul/' 

The  Brotherhood  at  Rome  sent  a  letter  to  Alexandria  to  be 
endorsed  by  those  at  that  city  and  afterwards  transmitted  to 
the  Brotherhood  throughout  the  world,  conveying  the  fact  that 
Paul  had  died  at  Rome  and  imploring  the  Brotherhood  to  use 
all  possible  means  to  bring  about  united  action  and  harmony 
with  Paul's  followers,  so  that  they  could  stand  as  a  wall  of 
defence  against  Jews  and  Gentiles.  As  there  had  been  only 
five  copies  of  Matthew's  first  gospel  sent  out  and  these  had  been 
sent  to  Palestine  and  other  cities  of  the  east  they  were  soon 
laid  aside,  and  Luke's  epistle  was  endorsed  as  a  favor  to  Paul's 
followers  so  that  all  the  communities  in  the  east  should  use 
one  gospel.  It  was  not  an  easy  matter  to  bring  these  jarring 
communities  together  as  one  body. 

First  along  it  was  the  Brotherhood  that  would  not  affiliate 
with  Paul  in  any  manner,  but  now  many  of  Paul's  followers 
would  not  go  into  the  Brotherhool.  Luke  and  John  the 
Presbyter  had  remained  great  friends  continually  writing  to 
each  other  about  their  affairs.  They  were  both  very  liberal 
and  very  much  interested  in  the  success  of  the  business  they 
were  engaged  in.  Luke  at  this  time  was  looked  upon  by 
Paul's  followers  as  Paul's  successor.  He  wrote  to  John  to  meet 
him  at  Alexandria.  There  had  been  a  large  number  of  small 
books  put  out  as  histories,  acts  and  memoirs  of  the  apostles. 
Both  John  and  Luke  had  gathered  up  a  lot  of  them  and  the 
object  of  Luke's  letter  to  John  was  on  this  subject.  Cepheus 
had  been  the  leader  of  those  who  went  from  Rome,  his  Jewish 
name  was  Simon  the  same  as  his  father's.  As  Luke's  gospel 
had  failed  to  accomplish  all  they  wished,  they  believed  that  it 
might  be  accomplished  if  it  could  be  shown  that  Cepheus  or 
Simon  and  Paul  worked  together  in  peace  and  harmony.  Hav- 
ing this  object  in  view  through  John's  suggestion  Luke  wrote 
what  was  called  the  acts  of  the  apostles.  As  none  of  the  acts 
that  had  been  written  by  other  writers  had  been  endorsed  by 
the  Brotherhood  and  made  an  official  document,  they  also 
took  some  of  Paul's  epistles,  for  Luke  had  copies  of  all  of 
them,  and  made  new  copies  showing  that  Simon  or  Cepheus 
and  Paul  had  worked  together.  It  should  be  remembered  that 


Man  and  the  Earth  117 

all  the  old  Jews  were  dead  who  had  joined  either  branch  of 
the  brethren.  When  these  documents  were  made  public  Paul's 
friends  could  find  no  ground  to  find  fault.  And  when  the  Acts 
of  Luke  was  read  it  was  not  long  until  it  received  the  approval 
of  the  leaders  of  both  factions.  Still  Paul's  epistles  were  not 
used  by  any  of  the  Brotherhood.  Some  of  those  who  were 
pretty  well  educated,  had  studied  them  for  one  purpose  or 
another,  but  not  to  use  in  their  religious  service.  The  com- 
plete unity  of  both  branches  was  not  consummated  until  Alex- 
ander became  bishop  of  Rome.  By  this  time  in  nearly  every  part 
of  the  empire  there  were  small  communities  of  the  Brother- 
hood which  went  by  whatever  name  outsiders  gave  them.  It 
was  soldiers  of  the  Roman  army  that  spread  it  so  extensively. 
It  was  not  until  now  that  it  took  the  name  of  Church. 
Wherever  you  find  in  any  of  the  gospels,  epistles,  acts  or  other 
religious  writings  that  name,  it  demonstrates  the  time  that  the 
word  was  put  into  it.  In  order  that  the  communities  should 
all  have  one  name  and  disown  or  abolish  the  local  names  they 
went  by,  the  bishops  of  Rome,  Alexandria,  Antioch  and  other 
large  cities  wrote  to  each  other  about  the  matter  and  it  was 
the  unanimous  conclusion  that  the  name  should  be  the  Catholic 
Church,  that  is,  a  confederacy  of  communities  working  together 
under  the  name  of  the  Catholic  Church.  From  these  centers 
of  population  the  instructions  were  sent  to  all  the  local  bodies 
that  they  should  disown  the  names  given  to  them  for  one  cause 
or  another  usually  by  outsiders,  and  become  members  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  After  this  event  an  attempt  was  made  to 
get  the  people  to  stop  the  use  of  unofficial  religious  writings, 
but  it  took  a  long  time  to  do  it.  The  first  revision  of  the 
gospels  now  took  place.  The  gospel  of  John  which  had  only 
been  sketched  as  the  last  step  in  unfolding  the  full  attributes 
of  the  Messiah,  was  now  filled  out.  This  was  done  when  the 
Jews  no  longer  held  a  place  of  honor  or  distinction  at  Rome, 
and  none  of  them  was  called  upon  to  look  it  over.  As  was 
stated  before  in  order  that  the  Jews  might  accept  it,  it  was 
said  that  its  author  was  John,  that  is,  the  original  sketch. 
They  did  not  examine  it  with  critical  eyes,  for  if  they  had  they 
would  have  known  that  he  did  not  write  it,  but  he  was  a 
long  time  dead  before  any  gospel  was  put  into  the  hands  of 
a  reader.  It  was  unintelligible  to  many  for  a  long  time,  for 


1 1 8  Modernism 

they  had  not  understood  that  the  Messiah  was  God.  Their 
conception  was  master  as  first  stated,  and  the  Messiah  as  next 
stated  was  that  of  a  most  extraordinary  person  filled  with  charity 
and  love  for  all  mankind,  who  suffered  patiently  and  forgave 
his  most  detested  enemies;  but  God,  as  the  Jews  understood 
it  was  revengeful,  unforgiving,  and  continually  punishing  them 
for  their  sins.  So  that  some  of  them  contended  that  if  Jesus 
was  God,  there  must  be  two  gods,  the  God  of  the  old  dispen- 
sation and  the  God  of  the  new  dispensation. 

However,  most  of  them  accepted  even  if  they  could  not 
believe,  but  it  became  a  great  mystery  which  was  hard  to  com- 
prehend. But  as  they  were  revising  the  gospels  then  they  put 
in  some  things  which  they  afterwards  declared  were  vestiges 
of  the  spirit  of  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament.  Such  as  "  those 
who  do  not  believe  will  be  damned  or  condemned."  There 
was  so  much  dispute  on  this  question  that  the  College  of  Pres- 
byters examined  the  matter  and  their  verdict  was  that  all  the 
most  ancient  disciples  and  the  apostles  believed  that  Jesus 
was  the  only  Son  of  God  equal  to  the  Father.  That  the  term 
son,  simply  meant  that  God  came  down  from  heaven,  and  in 
order  to  appear  as  a  man  and  to  suffer  for  example's  sake  and 
for  the  sins  of  the  world.  Many  explanations  were  given  which 
satisfied  many,  but  not  all.  When  the  revolters  were  disowned 
in  the  second  generation,  when  the  Jews  were  a  small  minority, 
the  time  and  manner  of  Simon's  death  which  had  only  been 
talked  about,  was  written  into  the  gospel,  and  they  confounded 
him  with  his  son,  whose  name  was  Simon  and  also  Cepheus  not 
Cephas.  And  when  John's  disciples  wanted  to  gain  pre-emi- 
nence for  John  they  used  Simon's  son's  name  to  play  with  to 
show  that  the  ma'ster  had  selected  Simon  to  act  as  leader. 
The  Church  was  the  most  democratic  organization  in  fthe 
empire,  all  its  officers  were  chosen  by  the  people  after  it  became 
the  Catholic  Church.  There  were  some  bright,  intelligent  men, 
bishops.  Many  very  ignorant  men  had  been  converted  whose 
sons  had  through  some  means  received  a  good  education  and 
quite  naturally  and  almost  of  necessity  they  followed  their 
father's  religion.  When  such  men  became  bishops  they  were 
of  great  help  to  the  church.  The  object  of  the  men  who  were 
founders  of  the  Church  was  to  make  it  the  best  religion  that 
ever  existed.  They  also  intended  to  make  Jesus  conform  if 


Man  and  the  Earth  119 

possible  in  his  words  and  act  to  the  ideal  messenger  of  Epic- 
tetus,  whose  philosophy  they  were  students  of.  They  knew 
that  not  many  men  would  suffer  tortures  and  death  for  any 
man  no  matter  how  perfect  he  might  be.  And  that  the  doc- 
trines of  no  man  would  be  beyond  amendment,  so  when  they 
had  put  doctrines  into  his  mouth  which  they  believed  were  the 
best  that  could  be  made,  in  order  that  no  one  would  try  to 
change  them,  they  must  of  necessity  make  him  a  god. 

But  men  came  after  them  who  were  unstable  in  character. 
When  the  Emperor  Augustus  thought  that  his  end  was  near  at 
hand  he  made  a  supper,  which  he  called  the  supper  of  the  gods. 
Twelve  priests  of  his  order  were  invited,  each  one  taking  the 
name  of  one  of  the  gods  under  whose  name  he  had  been  wor- 
shipped. He  always  favored  Dionysius  to  whom  bread  and  wine 
were  offered  as  a  votive  offering  not  as  a  sacrifice.  When  the 
priests  were  seated  around  the  table  he  made  a  speech  to  them 
saying  that  he  had  exercised  his  best  judgment  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  empire  to  secure  peace  at  home  and  abroad  and  to 
try  to  make  his  people  contented  and  happy,  but  knowing  that 
mankind  was  ever  ungrateful  to  their  benefactors,  that  in  a 
short  time  his  good  deeds  would  be  forgotten;  knowing  this, 
he  had  established  the  cult  of  which  they  were  his  most  deserv- 
ing priests  and  that  he  might  not  be  forgotten  by  all  men, 
he  had  invited  them  to  this  supper  of  bread  and  wine  which 
they  should  when  he  was  gone  from  among  them  institute  in 
their  temples  in  memory  of  him.  When  he  died  the  Augustine 
priests  immediately  instituted  this  supper  as  a  votive  offering 
to  God  in  memory  of  Augustus.  As  all  Augustine  priests  made 
a  sacred  promise  to  commemorate  this  supper  to  the  end  of 
their  days,  the  seven  priests  were  obliged  to  carry  the  institution 
into  the  new  organization.  All  the  things  spoken  of  in  this 
writing  were  related  by  John  to  his  friend  James  who  was  a 
Jew,  but  it  was  told  under  the  seal  of  friendship.  In  an  excited 
discussion  between  James  and  Silas  the  Monk,  James  forgot 
the  seal  of  friendship  and  told  him  the  story  which  Silas  com- 
mitted to  writing  and  revealed  it  to  a  brother  monk,  who  handed 
it  to  another  before  his  death  and  in  this  way  it  was  handed 
down  to  one  monk  after  another. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  Jewish  legend  to  see  if  it  will  stand 
the  test  of  close  investigation.  We  have  seen  in  the  legend 


I2O      |  Modernism 

where  it  speaks  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Christian  religion 
was  founded,  that  the  founders  followed  the  plan  adopted  by 
the  founders  of  the  religion  of  Serapis  and  also  of  the  Augustan 
cult.  Serapis  was  a  composite  character  created  from  the 
mythical  biographies  of  Osiris,  Mercury,  Dionysius  and  Hermes, 
and  having  the  four  evangels  of  Serapis  and  Augustus  before 
them,  they  remodeled  them  to  suit  the  circumstances  under 
which  they  intended  to  work  out  their  plan  of  salvation.  Fol- 
lowing their  pattern,  necessity  compelled  them  to  select  four 
Jewish  individuals  from  whose  life  and  works  they  could  build 
the  composite  character  of  the  Jewish  Messiah,  who  must  be 
a  wonder  worker,  a  preacher,  a  prophet  and  a  king.  As  all 
the  Avatars  and  Manifestors  who  personified  the  sun  were 
born  of  the  Virgin  of  the  Zodiac  on  the  winter  solstice,  in  the 
cave  where  the  moon  was  born  and  reborn;  in  the  stable  of 
Argus,  and  laid  in  the  manger  in  the  constellation  of  the  Crab, 
where  the  Asses  fed;  crucified  when  the  sun  crossed  the  line, 
buried  in  the  tomb  or  cave  in  the  sky  where  the  moon  went 
when  it  died,  then  arose  out  of  the  cave  or  tomb  on  the  third 
night  after  its  disappearance  and  ascended  up  to  the  highest 
heaven. 

As  Jesus  was  a  prominent  name  during  that  period  among 
the  Jews,  and  as  its  significance  bore  the  semblance  of  national 
honor  and  royalty,  that  name  was  selected  for  the  Messiah. 
As  Mary  had  been  one  of  the  names  of  Christina's  mother  and 
also  of  Serapis'  and  Buddha's  mother,  that  name  was  selected 
for  the  mother  of  Jesus.  In  looking  over  Jewish  history  they 
discovered  in  the  Talmud  a  brief  notice  of  a  man  of  that  name 
who  was  represented  as  being  a  Nazarene,  on  account  of  which 
the  Rabbis  cut  off  his  hair  and  washed  his  head  with  the 
water  Boleth,  so  that  his  hair  would  grow  no  more.  He  was 
taken  to  Egypt  in  his  youth,  where  he  studied  magic  and  the 
art  of  healing.  When  he  returned  he  became  a  wonder  worker, 
that  is,  a  worker  of  miracles.  He  is  referred  to  in  the  Talmud 
as  "  that  man  who  is  not  to  be  named."  He  was  stoned  to 
death  and  afterwards  crucified  by  hanging  on  a  tree  on  the 
eve  of  the  Passover  as  a  wizard.  The  legend  says  this  man 
was  selected  to  represent  the  miracle  working  part  of  Jesus. 
In  the  controversies  between  the  early  Christian  fathers  and 
the  Jews,  this  is  the  Jesus  that  the  opponents  of  the  Christians 


Man  and  the  Earth  121 

referred  to.  The  Jews  said,  that  his  mother,  whose  name  was 
Stada,  was  the  daughter  of  a  Roman  soldier,  that  her  char- 
acter was  bad  and  they  called  her  vile  names.  There  was  a 
noted  controversy  between  Celsus  a  pagan,  and  Origen  the 
most  prolific  writer  of  the  Christians  at  that  time.  This  con- 
troversy between  Origen  and  Celsus  was  intentionally  dis- 
arranged so  as  to  make  it  appear  that  Celsus  was  not  alive  when 
Origen  was  replying  to  his  attack  on  the  Christians.  The  Jesus 
of  the  Talmud  is  the  person  to  whom  Celsus  refers  as  the 
founder  of  Christianity,  and  it  nowhere  appears  in  the  argu- 
ment of  Origen  that  he  corrects  Celsus  in  this  matter.  This 
Jesus  went  to  Egypt  in  his  youth,  was  a  worker  of  miracles, 
a  healer  of  diseases,  was  crucified  and  hung  on  a  tree  as  a 
wizard.  He  was  also  a  Nazarene.  So  much  of  this  man's 
life  as  was  written  in  the  Talmud  was  applied  to  the  gospel 
Jesus,  and  Jesus  exemplified  the  character  of  a  wizard  at  the 
beginning  of  his  work  when  he  passed  through  a  mob  of 
men  unseen  who  intended  to  hurl  him  from  a  rock  to  kill 
him.  Peter  and  Paul  refer  in  their  epistles  to  a  Jesus  who  was 
hung  on  a  tree.  When  the  opponents  of  Christianity  had  reviled 
this  man  and  his  mother  until  it  became  necessary  for  them  to 
either  own  or  disown  him,  the  writers  of  the  gospels  having 
omitted  to  state  where  Jesus  resided,  now  wrote  into  them  that 
he  livetd  in  the  city  of  Nazareth,  that  was  why  he  was  called 
a  Nazarene,  but  that  would  not  make  him  a  Nazarene,  but  it 
answered  the  purpose  even  though  there  was  no  city  in  Galilee 
named  Nazareth,  only  a  small  hamlet  of  that  name. 

A  New  Testament  was  published  in  New  York  with  the 
approval  of  Bishop  Hughes.  The  second  chapter  twenty-third 
verse  of  Matthew  reads  as  follows:  "And  coming  he  dwelt  in 
a  city  called  Nazareth,  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was 
said  by  the  prophets,  that  he  shall  be  called  a  Nazarite."  The 
Dowey  (Catholic  Bible)  and  all  Protestant  Bibles  that  I  have 
consulted  use  the  word  "  Nazarene  "  not  Nazarite.  But  in  the 
life  of  Christ  by  Rev.  Francis  De  Ligney,  a  Jesuit,  the  word  is 
Nazarite.  All  these  bibles  claim  to  be  true  translations  of  the 
Latin  Vulgate.  The  Jesus  of  the  Talmud  was  a  Nazarene.  But 
the  sentence  in  Matthew  "  That  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was 
said  by  the  prophets  that  he  shall  be  called  a  Nazarene,  or  a 
Nazarite,"  was  what  Jerome  in  a  similar  case  called  a  bluff. 


122  Modernism 

The  Bible  has  been  searched,  even  the  margin  notes,  for  the 
prophets  that  said  it,  but  they  have  never  been  found.  It  is 
evident  that  the  Jesuits  are  at  work  on  Bible  bluffs,  and 
we  may  expect  hereafter  that  all  testaments  published  under 
their  eyes,  will  have  it  Nazarite  not  Nazarene.  As  the  gospel 
Jesus  was  a  composite  creation,  no  one  among  the  early  preach- 
ers was  ever  authorized  to  acknowledge  any  historical  Jesus  as 
the  Christ.  The  gospels  say  that  Jesus  preached  in  Judea,  Gali- 
lee, Samaria  and  other  places  as  far  as  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and 
that  he  was  killed  through  the  weakness  of  Pilate  and  at  tfie 
instigation  of  Caiaphas  the  high  priest. 

The  history  of  Josephus  shows  that  a  man  whom  he  does 
not  name  was  addressing  public  gatherings  of  people,  and  in 
consequence  of  the  language  he  used  about  the  author's  friends, 
he  calls  him  a  liar  who  contrived  everything  so  that  the  multi- 
tude might  be  pleased.  The  inference  to  be  drawn  from  the 
language  of  Josephus  in  reference  to  this  man  is,  that  he  had 
been  frequently  addressing  public  gatherings  of  the  people  on 
Jewish  affairs,  and  the  reason  Josephus  does  not  name  him  is 
that  he  had  been  publicly  criticizing  his  brother  pharisees,  so 
that  he  was  another  "  man  who  must  not  be  named."  He  states 
that  the  killing  of  this  man  sent  Pilate  to  Rome  to  be  tried  for 
murder,  and  although  he  does  not  connect  his  brother  Caiaphas 
with  the  murder,  it  is  evident  that  he  was  connected  with  it, 
for  the  president  of  the  province  expelled  him  from  the  high 
priesthood  at  the  same  time.  The  writers  of  the  gospels  being 
Romans  not  only  throw  the  blame  for  his  death  principally 
on  the  high  priest,  but  they  blame  the  Jewish  mob,  who  Josephus 
says  followed  him  approvingly.  It  is  evident  that  the  work 
of  this  man  suggested  the  preaching  part  of  the  gospel  Jesus. 
It  seems  evident  also  that  he  was  quite  a  public  character  and 
that  his  name  was  Jesus  for  John  certainly  knew  him  and 
possibly  there  was  love  between  them  which  he  often  spoke 
about.  This  man's  work  strongly  sustains  the  Jewish  legend. 
If  this  man  had  been  a  healer  or  miracle  worker,  Josephus 
would  have  called  him  a  magician.  It  is  likely  that  his  public 
speaking  was  what  might  be  classed  at  the  time  of  a  political 
nature,  for  the  innovaters  at  that  time  wanted  some  man  learned 
in  the  law  to  attack  the  rulers,  and  as  the  high  priests  were 
tyrannical,  and  the  pharisees  power-loving  and  avaricious,  while 


Man  and  the  Earth  123 

they  were  strenuous  in  the  observance  of  the  technical  features 
of  the  law,  and  oppressed  the  poor,  so  that  his  criticism  of 
their  actions  was  good  preaching.  Following  the  Jewish  legend 
the  person  selected  to  perform  the  part  of  the  prophet,  is  re- 
ferred to  in  Book  VI  and  chapter  five  of  the  Jewish  Wars.  He 
says  that  "  One  Jesus,  the  son  of  a  plebeian,  came  to  the  temple 
during  the  feast  of  the  Tabernacles  four  years  before  the  war 
began  and  cried  out  a  voice  from  the  east,  a  voice  from  the 
west,  a  voice  from  the  four  winds,  a  voice  against  Jerusalem 
and  the  holy  house,  a  voice  against  the  bridegrooms  and  the 
brides,  and  a  voice  against  the  whole  people."  (This  is  where 
the  writers  of  the  gospel  got  the  voice  of  the  Baptist  crying  in 
the  wilderness  from.)  This  was  his  cry  by  day  and  by  night 
as  he  went  through  all  the  lanes  of  the  city.  He  was  arrested 
and  beaten  many  times.  Finally  the  rulers  thinking  he  was 
crazy  took  him  before  the  Roman  procurator  when  he  was 
beaten  till  his  bones  were  laid  bare,  yet  he  made  no  supplication 
for  himself  nor  shed  any  tears.  The  Roman  procurator  then 
asked  who  he  was  and  whence  he  came  but  Jesus  answered 
him  not,  but  still  kept  up  the  cry  woe,  woe  to  Jerusalem.  The 
procurator  finally  dismissed  him,  but  he  kept  up  the  cry  of 
woe  to  Jerusalem.  At  last  he  was  killed  by  a  stone  from  a 
Roman  engine  as  he  was  going  around  on  the  wall.  There  is 
much  more  about  him  than  stated  here.  The  gospel  of  Mat- 
thew says  they  brought  Jesus  bound  to  Pontius  Pilate  who 
asked  him  who  he  was  and  whence  he  came  and  Jesus  answered 
him  never  a  word.  Mark  says  "  They  delivered  Jesus  to  Pilate 
who  asked  him  several  questions,  but  Jesus  still  answered  him 
nothing."  Luke  says  "And  Herod  questioned  him  in  many 
words,  but  Jesus  answered  him  nothing,"  and  John  remarks, 
"  Pilate  entered  the  hall  again  and  he  said  to  Jesus  'Whence 
art  thou?'  but  Jesus  gave  him  no  answer."  All  the  gospels 
say  that  Jesus  was  practically  dismissed  by  Pilate.  This  Jesus 
was  the  man  whom  the  Augustine  priests  selected  to  have  his 
record  applied  as  a  prophet  to  the  gospel  Jesus.  There  is  no 
practical  difference  between  the  prophesies  of  this  Jesus  in 
relation  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  the  people  and  the 
temple  and  the  gospel  Jesus.  Every  time  the  question  as  to 
who  he  was  and  whence  he  came  is  put  to  them  they  answer 
it  the  same  way.  All  the  gospels  say  that  Jesus  was  scourged 


124  Modernism 

and  Josephus  says  this  man  was  beaten  till  his  bones  were 
laid  bare.  During  the  time  that  this  Jesus  was  prophesying  he 
did  no  work  but  lived  on  the  charity  of  well  disposed  people. 
There  is  no  account  that  the  gospel  Jesus  did  any  work  during 
his  travels  or  preaching.  According  to  the  gospels,  the  final 
and  most  effectual  charge  that  was  brought  against  Jesus  by 
the  high  priest  was  that  he  said  he  was  a  king. 

•According  to  John  Pilate  said  to  Jesus,  "Art  thou  a  king 
then?"  Jesus  answered  "Thou  sayest  that  I  am  a  king,  for 
this  was  I  born  and  for  this  came  I  into  the  world."  Luke 
says,  "  Pilate  asked  Jesus  if  he  was  king  of  the  Jews  and  Jesus 
answered,  thou  sayest  it."  According  to  Mark  and  Matthew 
the  same  questions  and  answers  are  given.  They  put  on  his 
head  a  crown  of  thorns  and  mocking  him  said,  "  Hail  king  of 
the  Jews."  All  the '  gospel  writers  say  they  crucified  him 
with  a  crown  of  thorns  on  his  head  and  an  inscription  on  the 
cross  over  his  head  the  King  of  the  Jews.  John  makes  it  "  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  King  of  the  Jews."  When  Anthony  invaded  Judea 
after  a  number  of  battles  Antigonas,  who  claimed  to  be  King 
of  the  Jews,  was  turned  over  to  him.  When  he  was  crucified 
with  a  crown  of  thorns  on  his  head  and  the  inscription  placed 
on  the  cross  "  the  King  of  the  Jews,"  Herod  had  bribed  Anthony 
with  gold  to  give  him  the  kingdom.  Antigonas  was  a  poor 
general,  but  made  as  good  a  fight  as  he  was  able  against  Herod 
and  the  Romans,  but  when  taken  prisoner  by  the  Roman  gen- 
eral he  begged  for  his  life  to  be  spared,  this  act  caused  the 
Roman  officer  to  laugh  at  him  calling  him  a  woman.  When 
turned  over  to  Anthony  it  is  likely  that  he  performed  the  act 
of  weakness  again  so  to  humiliate  and  disgrace  him  he  ordered 
him  to  be  crucified  with  a  crown  of  thorns  on  his  head  and 
the  inscription  placed  over  his  head  the  "  King  of  the  Jews/' 
Where  the  application  of  this  man's  disgraceful  end  to  the  gospel 
story  of  Jesus  comes  in  is  that  Antigonas  was  no  real  king. 
The  Romans  held  dominion  over  Judea  and  he  had  never  been 
recognized  as  a  king.  He  married  a  woman  who  was  one  of 
the  last  heirs  of  the  Hasmonian  kings  and  started  to  fight  to 
gain  the  kingdom,  therefore  he  was  what  is  called  a  pretender. 
Now  if  the  story  of  the  gospel  Jesus  was  true,  he  could  not 
be  looked  upon  as  a  king  on  account  of  claiming  heirship  from 
David,  whose  bones  had  long  since  gone  into  ashes  or  dust. 


Man  and  the  Earth  125 

therefore  in  any  historical  light  he  could  be  nothing  but  a 
pretender.  This  is  where  the  exact  similarity  comes  in.  This 
is  why  the  story  of  Antigonas  fits  that  of  Jesus,  and  this  is 
why  it  was  applied  to  him  by  the  gospel  writers.  As  the  Jewish 
Messiah  had  to  fill  out  all  the  requirements  of  his  predecessors, 
he  had  to  be  crucified  and  they  used  Antigonas  whom  many 
Jews  loved  in  his  day  and  nearly  all  of  those  who  were  men 
at  the  time  knew  of,  as  the  fourth  man  to  play  a  part  in  their 
tragedy.  The  fate  of  Antigonas  must  have  been  in  the  original 
copy  of  Josephus,  but  he  uses  the  words  of  another  historian 
who  said  that  such  a  disgraceful  death  as  Antigonas  suffered 
had  never  been  known  to  be  inflicted  on  a  king.  Dion  Cassius, 
the  Roman  historian,  who  wrote  at  the  latter  part  of  the  second 
century,  copied  what  he  wrote  about  the  Jews  mostly  from 
Josephus,  and  says,  Anthony  stretched  Antigonas  on  a  cross 
with  a  crown  of  thorns  on  his  head  and  the  inscription  of 
"  King  of  the  Jews  "  placed  over  it  on  the  cross,  so  that  the 
disgraceful  end  of  Antigonas  would  cause  those  Jews  who  loved 
Antigonas  never  to  think  of  making  one  of  his  sons  king  of 
the  Jews.  When  the  apochryphal  gospels  and  other  semi-Chris- 
tian writings  were  put  in  circulation,  some  of  the  writers  had 
copies  of  Josephus  and  other  Jewish  writers  that  very  little  is 
known  about  at  the  present  day. 

You  have  seen  that  none  of  the  official  gospels,  or  memoirs 
of  the  apostles,  as  some  called  them,  were  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  preachers  for  a  long  time.  The  writers  of  the 
spurious  gospels  and  others  were  hunting  through  Jewish  his- 
tories to  find  who  the  Jesus  was  that  the  preachers  were  talking 
about,  so  that  nearly  every  bad  character  of  the  name  of  Jesus 
recorded  by  Josephus  principally,  was  called  the  founder  of  the 
Brotherhood  by  their  enemies,  and  as  certain  incidents  in  the 
lives  of  some  of  these  Jesuses  were  tacked  into  some  of  the 
spurious  gospels,  this  fact  gave  ground  for  what  was  called 
"the  blasphemous  work  of  the  adversaries  of  the  Brother- 
hood." A  notorious  robber  mentioned  by  Josephus  was  claimed 
to  be  its  founder,  and  there  was  so  much  talk  about  him,  that 
he  is  referred  to  in  the  gospel  where  it  says  that  he  was  reckoned 
with  the  wicked.  The  Jews  who  were  taken  to  Rome  by  Titus, 
and  their  sons  and  daughters,  were  the  first  to  become  mem- 
bers of  the  Brotherhood,  as  they  believed  that  its  main  object 


126  Modernism 

was  to  perpetuate  the  memory  and  justify  the  acts  of  those 
who  rebelled  against  the  authority  of  the  high  priests  and  the 
pharisees.  The  most  prominent  men  in  the  revolt  were  named 
as  the  original  twelve  apostles.  In  the  original  gospels  there 
were  no  dates  given  and  everything  was  done  to  prevent  any 
one  from  knowing  when  they  were  written  or  when  any  of 
the  events  related  in  them  had  taken  place.  When  it  was  pub- 
licly announced  that  the  crucifixion  occurred  under  Pilate,  the 
small  number  of  spurious  gospels  that  had  been  written  was 
soon  followed  by  nearly  fifty  others. 

You  have  seen  that  John,  whom  Josephus  calls  John  of 
Gischala,  was  one  of  the  very  prominent  men  during  the  earliest 
years  of  the  preaching  of  the  gospel.  John  was  born  about 
the  beginning  of  the  century  and  his  wonderful  constitution 
preserved  him  till  the  early  part  of  the  second  century.  Cepheus, 
whose  Jewish  name  was  Simon,  being  the  son  of  Simon  who 
became  supreme  commander  of  the  Jews  at  the  siege  of  Jeru- 
salem, was  the  first  to  take  a  band  of  preachers  to  Alexandria 
and  Palestine.  During  John's  life  and  after  his  death,  his  dis- 
ciples had  tried  to  attain  pre-eminence  for  John  and  for  them- 
selves, because  of  the  high  position  he  held  at  the  siege  of 
Jerusalem.  John's  name  had  been  given  to  the  fourth  gospel 
on  account  of  the  estimation  he  was  held  in  by  the  Jews  and 
also  that  the  Jews  would  not  think  of  rejecting  it.  Before  that 
gospel  was  put  into  the  hands  of  the  preachers  it  was  revised 
to  show  that  the  master  had  selected  Simon  to  be  the  leader 
of  his  apostles.  Much  later  in  time,  when  the  Jewish  revolters 
were  being  disowned  the  eighteenth  verse  was  put  in  John's 
gospel  to  convince  John's  disciples.  Simon  having  lived  for  a 
long  time  among  the  Idumeans,  Josephus  noting  that  he  had 
been  called  Simon  Bar  Giaora,  when  he  was  first  referred  to  in 
the  gospel,  he  was  called  Simon  Bar  Jona  using  the  Idumean 
phrase  in  place  of  the  Jewish  phrase  Simon  Ben  Jona,  but 
this  was  done  after  the  revolters  were  disowned  by  the  gospel 
writers.  The  name  Peter  was  taken  from  the  tragedy  of 
Prometheus,  the  fisherman  Petrus.  The  character  of  this  fisher- 
man is  described  in  the  XVI  chap.  2ist  and  22nd  verses  of  Matt, 
in  nearly  the  same  manner  that  it  is  described  in  the  tragedy 
of  Prometheus.  As  Paul,  who  changed  his  name  from  Saulus 
so  that  he  would  not  be  known,  did  not  know  anything  about 


Man  and  the  Earth  127 

what  the  gospel  writers  were  doing,  always  referred  to  the 
leader  of  the  Brotherhood  as  Cepheus,  but  in  order  that  the 
name  would  convey  a  meaning  somewhat  similar  to  Peter  in  the 
language  they  usually  used,  when  they  got  Paul's  epistles  in 
their  custody  they  wrote  it  Cephas.  Later  gospel  revisions 
got  the  names  of  the  older  Simon  and  his  son  mixed  as  the 
Jewish  legend  says  young  Simon  had  the  Jewish  name  of  his 
father,  and  also  that  of  the  Augustine  priest  who  had  adopted 
him  whose  name  was  Cepheus  Linus.  Cepheus  therefore  be- 
came the  first  superintendent  of  the  Brotherhood  and  after- 
wards bishop  of  Rome. 

On  his  second  visit  to  the  east  he  made  a  long  stop  at  Antioch. 
The  question  of  pre-eminence  between  John's  followers  and 
those  of  Cepheus  had  spread  from  Ephesus  to  Antioch.  From 
this  city  he  got  in  communication  with  all  his  followers  in  nearly 
every  part  of  the  east.  It  was  here  that  he  either  assumed  the 
office  of  superintendent  or  was  elected  to  that  office.  Your 
attention  has  been  called  to  the  fact  that  no  dates  or  the  names 
of  reigning  kings  were  put  into  the  original  four  gospels,  but 
as  Luke's  gospel  was  a  compilation  or  selection  from  apocryphal 
gospels  and  such  matter  as  he  had  learned  from  the  preaching 
of  Paul,  the  great  caution  that  was  observed  by  the  writers  of 
the  original  four  was  neglected  by  Luke.  As  this  gospel  imme- 
diately was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Paul's  followers,  for  a 
long  time  its  contents  was  indelibly  impressed  on  their  memory, 
as  it  was  the  single  story  of  one  man  written  in  historical  order. 
The  birth  of  Jesus  being  placed  at  the  Cyrenian  taxation,  the 
beginning  of  his  preaching  at  the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius  and 
the  government  of  Pontius  Pilate.  Being  drawn  from  many 
sources,  even  some  of  the  preaching  of  his  brethren  he  made 
Jesus  say,  "  That  the  blood  of  all  the  prophets  which  was  shed 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world  may  be  required  of  this  gen- 
eration. From  the  blood  of  Abel  unto  the  blood  of  Zacharias 
who  was  slain  between  the  altar  and  the  temple,  verily  I  say 
unto  you  it  will  be  required  of  this  generation."  It  should  not 
be  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  of  the  fact  that  Zacharias 
was  slain  more  than  thirty  years  after  the  time  that  the  gospels 
say  Jesus  was  crucified. 

Although  there  is  nothing  in  the  New  Testament  that  shows 
that  Paul  was  ever  in  Rome  yet  the  Jewish  legend  says  he 


128     .  Modernism 

was  there  twice,  dying  there  on  his  last  visit.  Although  his 
followers  became  a  part  of  the  Catholic  Confederacy,  they  still 
used  his  gospel  principally  and  his  epistles,  but  that  part  of 
the  church  that  had  not  been  Paulites  made  no  use  of  his 
epistles,  except  a  few  of  the  more  educated,  who  merely  kept 
them  with  them  for  one  purpose  or  another,  this  fact  kept  the 
gospel  of  Luke  and  many  of  Paul's  epistles  from  being  revised 
less  than  they  otherwise  would  have,  but  in  no  great  length 
of  time  all  the  epistles  and  Luke's  gospel  would  have  been 
shorn  of  every  sentence  which  the  revisers  did  not  like  to 
preserve  for  future  generations.  But  in  a  short  time  after  the 
church  had  reached  a  peaceful  and  prosperous  condition,  one 
of  the  followers  of  Paul,  a  layman  and  a  rich  ship  owner,  a 
deep  student  of  church  history,  an  able  theologian,  a  man  of 
rare  vigor  and  energy  opened  a  breach  in  the  ranks  of  the 
church,  which  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  effective  organization 
which  had  been  secured  through  over  forty  years  of  persevering 
and  continuous  labor  under  the  most  difficult  circumstances 
the  Catholic  Church  which  had  now  arrived  at  the  goal  to  which 
its  founders  looked  with  anxious  eyes,  might  have  been  de- 
stroyed, or  at  least  have  fallen  back  to  the  position  of  a  minor 
Christian  sect.  Marcion  repudiated  all  the  gospels  except 
Luke's,  and  of  the  epistles  of  Paul  he  excepted  only  ten,  and  parts 
of  the  ten  he  denounced  as  spurious.  Paul  was  his  single 
apostle  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  he  never  abandoned  the  design 
of  gaining  the  whole  membership  of  the  church  to  his  gospel 
and  ideas  concerning  the  Christ.  He  established  his  seat  at 
Rome  and  traveled  east  and  west,  first  arousing  the  dying  love 
for  Paul  that  still  slumbered  in  the  minds  of  the  oldest  converts 
alive  of  the  man  from  Tarsus.  What  there  was  left  of  these 
flocked  to  his  standard,  and  with  the  impetuosity  and  force  of 
Luther  at  a  later  epoch,  his  watchword  was  nearly  the  same 
in  some  respects.  He  as  Paul  was  ignorant  of  the  real  foun- 
dation of  ithe  religion ;  he  hoped  to  bring  it  back  to  what  he 
thought  Paul's  conception  of  that  foundation  was.  You  have 
seen  that  Cepheus  and  the  other  founders  of  the  Brotherhood 
desired  after  Paul's  death  to  bring  into  the  one  fold  all  those 
who  believed  in  the  main  doctrines  taught  by  them,  not  because 
of  Paul's  conception  of  the  Christ  or  Paul's  letters,  but  be- 
cause his  followers  were  a  respectable  body  of  Christians.  They 


Man  and  the  Earth  129 

were  honest  and  faithful  workers  in  the  cause  and  no  matter 
what  Paul's  credentials  were,  they  were  not  responsible  for 
what  they  did  not  know.  It  was  easier  for  a  large  number 
to  withstand  the  attacks  and  insults  of  outsiders  than  to  bear 
the  taunts  of  enemies  and  half  friends,  and  the  positive  injuries 
of  pronounced  enemies.  Therefore  when  Paul's  followers  came 
into  the  fold  a  great  object  had  been  accomplished.  If  the 
leaders  of  the  Brotherhood  had  a  full  knowledge  of  Paul's 
conception  of  the  Christ  and  if  that  conception  was  the  same 
as  Marcion's,  they  would  by  wise  diplomacy  eradicate  that  con- 
ception from  the  minds  of  such  of  Paul's  friends  as  had  grasped 
that  conception  of  the  Christ. 

Of  Paul's  many  lies  his  greatest  lie  was  about  the  manner 
of  his  conversion,  this  lie  being  his  only  commission  as  a 
preacher.  The  founders  of  the  religion  knew  that  the  Christ 
of  their  invention  could  speak  to  no  man,  therefore  they  knew 
that  Paul  was  a  notorious  liar  for  claiming  that  their  com- 
posite character  ever  spoke  to  Paul  or  any  one  else.  On 
this  account  the  Brotherhood  never  ceased  to  call  him  a  liar 
and  an  imposter.  And  Paul  told  so  many  lies  that  outside  of 
his  own  friends  no  confidence  was  placed  in  his  word.  Paul 
had  learned  the  Gnostic  idea  of  the  Christ,  and  if  he  had  hon- 
estly desired  to  become  a  faithful  preacher  of  the  Brotherhood, 
he  would  have  gone  to  them  for  instructions  in  order  to  get 
a  commission  to  preach,  but  he  did  not  wish  to  take  orders 
from  any  one.  He  wanted  to  be  boss,  and  he  wanted  to  preach 
a  gospel  of  his  own.  He  expected  that  his  lie  would  be  believed 
by  the  majority  of  the  preachers  as  he  knew  they  were  ignor- 
ant, but  he  was  ignored  by  them  at  the  advice  of  the  leaders. 

These  expecting  that  a  larger  number  of  the  Jews  would  rally 
to  their  standard,  were  disappointed,  and  they  then  gave  their 
attention  to  the  pagans.  Here  again  Paul  tried  to  make  him- 
self good  by  claiming  that  Jesus  commissioned  him  to  preach 
to  the  Gentiles,  but  the  Brotherhood  still  called  him  a  liar. 
When  Marcion,  with  his  wealth,  zeal  and  ambition  tried  to 
make  the  fully  instructed  successors  of  the  founders  of  the 
Catholic  Church  believe  and  accept  Paul's  conception  of  the 
Christ  he  failed.  Although  he  had  made  a  wide  breach  in 
the  church  membership,  he  did  not  have  good  organizers  to 
perfect  his  work  and  when  he  ceased  from  his  labors,  his  lead- 


130  Modernism 

ers  divided  his  followers  into  differing  sects  and  the  great 
majority  went  back  into  the  older  organization,  but  Paul's  ghost 
went  marching  on.  Luke's  gospel  and  Paul's  epistles  were 
preserved  without  such  a  revision  as  they  might  have  been 
subjected  to,  if  Marcion  had  not  fought  to  give  them  first  place 
in  Christian  history  and  theology.  Alexander  Pope  who  was 
a  wise  poet  said  "  Whatever  is  is  right,"  if  that  saying  contains 
the  truth,  it  was  a  good  thing  that  Marcion  lived  and  fought 
to  make  his  idea  of  right  prevail,  but  the  writer  of  these  lines 
does  not  believe  that  everything  that  is  is  right,  therefore  he 
thinks  that  it  was  a  great  misfortune  that  Paul's  letters  were 
preserved  one  day  after  the  death  of  the  liar.  The  founders 
of  the  religion  had  a  worthy  object  in  view  and  none  of  them 
wrote  a  line  with  the  hope  that  his  name  would  be  preserved. 
There  never  was  a  time  that  Cepheus  gave  Paul  the  right  hand 
of  fellowship,  if  that  had  occurred  there  would  have  been  no 
necessity  for  Luke  to  write  either  a  gospel  or  an  Acts  of  the 
apostles.  After  the  death  of  Marcion  Paul's  epistles  were  used 
to  help  bring  back  to  the  fold  those  who  became  his  followers, 
and  some  of  the  unnatural  ideas  of  Paul  soon  became  popular 
in  the  church.  Paul  was  a  bachelor,  so  was  Marcion. 

In  the  gospels  there  had  been  no  precept  calling  on  any 
prelate  to  refrain  from  marrying,  but  Paul  being  a  bachelor 
himself,  advised  others  performing  religious  functions  to  remain 
single,  even  recommending  this  unnatural  idea  to  the  men  and 
women  of  his  communities.  This  condition  of  things  did  not 
prevail  in  the  Brotherhood.  After  Marcion's  exploits  and 
preaching  had  made  an  impression  on  the  minds  of  the  rulers 
of  the  church,  celibacy  began  to  take  root  among  the  priests. 
Finally  when  the  state  had  joined  hands  with  the  church  celi- 
bacy had  become  obligatory  on  all  performing  religious  func- 
tions. The  three  men,  Ambrose,  Jerome  and  Augustine,  whose 
acts  and  words  have  ever  since  ruled  the  Catholic  Church,  were 
converts  to  the  teaching  of  Paul  and  next  to  Paul  are  respon- 
sible for  all  the  moral  and  intellectual  degradation  that  followed. 
For  sixty-seven  years  after  Constantine,  the  emperors  did 
little  to  injure  the  social,  financial  or  political  interests  of  the 
majority,  as  their  advisors  were  patriots  and  statesmen.  The 
numerical  strength  of  the  Christians,  after  sixty-seven  years  of 
imperial  patronage  is  described  by  St.  Augustine  in  the  year  three 


Man  and  the  Earth  131 

hundred  eighty  in  these  words.  "  The  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  people  and  nearly  the  whole  of  the  nobility  are  still  pagan." 
And  St.  Jerome  writes  that  the  Christians  are  less  spiritual  than 
ever.  He  gives  an  account  of  the  moral  condition  of  young 
priests  which  is  nearly  as  corrupt  as  that  of  their  order  during 
the  middle  ages.  Although  the  growth  of  the  church  had  been 
slow  even  with  the  help  of  imperial  patronage,  the  means  for 
its  more  rapid  growth  was  furnished  by  the  election  of  Ambrose, 
an  ambitious  lawyer  and  politician,  bishop  of  Milan.  Gratian, 
a  boy  of  sixteen  years,  and  Valentinian  six  years,  were  the 
emperors  of  the  west.  The  seat  of  the  imperial  court  was  at 
Milan.  By  his  position  of  Bishop  of  Milan,  Ambrose  became 
spiritual  director  of  the  two  young  emperors,  who  were  very 
religious  and  superstitious.  Taking  the  eldest  of  these  under 
his  management,  after  two  years  the  triumph  of  Christianity 
began  in  earnest.  When  the  time  came  for  the  young  emperor 
to  assume  the  robe  and  title  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  he  refused 
to  accept  them.  This  was  done  at  the  instigation  of  Ambrose 
who  was  then  beginning  to  perform  the  functions  of  that  office 
without  the  title  or  robe.  The  bishop  of  Rome  always  exercised 
great  influence,  because  of  the  wealth  of  the  Roman  see,  but 
no  such  title  as  "  The  Pope,"  was  recognized  until  after  the 
time  of  Ambrose  who  had  attained  greater  political  power  than 
ever  had  been  exercised  by  any  bishop.  Through  his  influence 
over  the  young  emperors  of  the  west  Theodosius  was  made 
emperor  of  the  east  and  now  he  became  spiritual  director  to 
the  emperors  of  the  west  and  east,  and  at  his  dictation  every 
bit  of  patronage  which  the  pagans  had  received  for  a  thousand, 
years  was  now  taken  from  them.  Some  of  the  Christian  priests 
now  humorously  remarked  to  their  pagan  neighbors,  that  now 
everything  was  as  it  should  be  as  all  religions  were  on  equal 
terms,  so  the  pagans  accepted  the  altered  conditions  and  imme- 
diately assumed  the  expense  connected  with  their  religious  wor- 
ship. Ambrose  did  not  think  the  pagans  would  try  to  support 
the  expenses  of  their  temples  as  it  would  take  an  enormous 
sum  of  money,  but  they  did.  He  then  induced  the  Emperor 
Valentinian  in  three  hundred  ninety-one  to  issue  an  edict  com- 
manding the  pagan  temples  to  be  closed  and  all  sacrifices  dis- 
continued. Most  of  the  temples  were  closed,  sealed  and  some 
of  them  were  demolished.  Being  debarred  from  entering  the 


132     i  Modernism 

temples  some  of  the  priests  held  services  outside  of  them.  That 
this  evasion  of  the  law  might  not  spread  too  far,  another  edict 
was  issued  imposing  a  fine  and  imprisonment  on  all  who  should 
dare  to  cultivate  any  other  than  the  Catholic  religion.  As  the 
Catholic  Church  had  adopted  all  the  captivating  features  of 
pagan  worship,  when  the  mass  of  the  people  saw  the  temples 
closed  they  walked  into  the  Catholic  churches  in  droves.  Within 
the  space  of  twenty  years  under  the  dictation  of  Ambrose,  the 
Catholic  Church  had  grown  from  a  small  minority  of  the  com- 
mon people  to  a  majority  of  them. 

The  Catholic  Church  was  now  made  the  religion  of  the 
state,  and  the  public  revenues  were  used  for  the  construction 
of  churches  and  the  support  of  religion.  But  still  a  majority 
of  the  nobility  and  the  intellectual  classes  were  pagans.  A 
decree  was  now  issued  to  suppress  these  classes  altogether.  It 
excluded  from  the  services  of  the  emperors  all  enemies  of  the 
Catholic  religion.  While  Ambrose  was  Bishop  of  Milan  and 
spiritual  director  of  the  emperors,  Eusebius  Hieronymus,  a 
half  savage  monk  was  occupying  rooms  in  one  of  the  palaces 
on  the  Aventine,  teaching  the  daughters  of  the  wealthy  and 
gathering  gold  to  feed  the  army  of  professional  beggars  spread- 
ing themselves  over  Africa.  And  Jerome,  in  his  cell  at  Beth- 
lehem, through  his  letters  established  the  cult  of  the  virgin 
and  virginity,  as  an  imitator  of  Paul,  and  through  his  brutal  but 
captivating  letters  to  Roman  ladies,  taught  them  how  to  con- 
vert their  husbands  and  sons.  But  the  insane  propaganda 
of  the  virgin  cult  insisting  on  virgins  and  widows  to  take  a 
vow  of  perpetual  chastity,  was  the  means  of  making  Ambrose 
and  many  leading  bishops,  write  special  epistles  in  favor  of 
the  cult  of  the  virgin  that  would  make  a  horse  laugh  at  the 
present  day.  Think  of  men  whose  writings  and  other  work 
are  ruling  the  Catholic  world  even  to-day,  declaring  that  the 
Lord  would  provide  other  means  than  the  natural  one  to 
increase  the  population  of  the  earth  if  virgins  and  widows  would 
take  a  vow  of  chastity  and  keep  it.  And  that  a  small  number 
of  matrons  would  under  God's  providence  be  so  prolific  in  the 
number  of  children  at  a  birth,  that  the  usual  rate  of  increase 
would  continue.  That  married  men  and  their  wives  should 
live  as  much  apart  as  possible  and  only  come  together  for  the 
purpose  that  the  Lord  had  instituted  matrimony,  to  increase 


Man  and  the  Earth  133 

the  number  of  souls.  Jerome  as  an  expounder  of  doctrine,  in 
relation  to  the  soul  held  that  the  Lord  united  the  soul  with 
the  body  of  the  unborn  infant,  when  the  body  was  ready  to 
receive  it.  Augustine  thought  this  idea  militated  against  the 
doctrine  of  original  sin.  He  thought  souls  might  be  propa- 
gated by  parents  to  their  children,  but  Jerome's  idea  was  ac- 
cepted by  the  church  as  the  true  doctrine. 

However,  on  the  question  of  virginity  and  men's  connection 
with  women  they  bent  the  law  of  restraint  until  it  broke,  as 
their  successors  while  accepting  their  doctrine  of  faith,  the  des- 
pising of  intellectual  exercises,  and  the  condemnation  and  dam- 
nation of  mental  liberty  as  followers  of  Paul,  ignored  and 
laughed  at  restraint.  Augustine  as  the  most  valiant  and  vic- 
torious defender  of  doctrine,  and  the  animating  spirit  of  synods, 
conclaves  and  councils,  carried  the  New  Testament  fixing  the 
canon  practically  as  we  have  it  to-day  at  the  council  of  Car- 
thage. The  political  policy  adopted  by  Ambrose  was  continued 
throughout  the  empire  or  what  was  left  of  it  in  the  day  of 
Pius  IX  when  Victor  Emanuel  entered  the  city  of  Rome,  cap- 
turing the  seat  and  citadel  of  the  western  empire,  leaving  only 
a  garden  to  the  Pope  as  his  temporal  kingdom. 

It  would  not  be  doing  entire  justice  to  our  subject,  to  leave 
the  gap  of  time  between  Ambrose  and  Victor  Emanuel  entirely 
unnoticed.  Ambrose  being  a  politician  first,  and  a  follower 
of  Paul  as  a  Christian  bishop,  his  Pauline  education  destroyed 
his  appreciation  of  patriotism,  intellectual  acquirements  and  the 
beneficence  of  a  great  social  civilization  in  which  men  and 
women  could  enjoy  all  the  happiness  that  springs  from  the 
natural  aspirations  of  the  human  heart  enjoyable  mostly  in  the 
marriage  state,  which  his  office  of  bishop  precluded  him  from  ex- 
periencing. Being  ambitious  he  aimed  to  make  his  profession  in 
life  and  the  church  whose  cause  he  had  espoused,  the  governing 
power  whose  ecclesiastical  organization  should  rule  the  state. 
Like  the  majority  of  politicians  in  all  ages,  he  was  ignorant  of  the 
value  of  science  and  the  arts,  and  superficial  in  general  knowl- 
edge. Under  these  circumstances,  his  Pauline  education  or 
convictions  caused  his  deplorable  and  unfortunate  bigotry. 

For  over  three  hundred  years  before  the  Christian  era,  all 
the  arts  and  every  branch  of  science  had  been  cultivated  in 
Greece,  such  as  philosophy,  astronomy,  painting,  elocution, 


134  Modernism 

sculpture,  oratory,  poetry,  history,  the  drama,  medicine,  music, 
mathematics,  and  everything  else  that  elevates  the  mind  or  gives 
strength  and  vigor  to  the  body;  and  in  time  these  elevating  and 
civilizing  pursuits  were  transferred  to  Rome  where  it  became 
fashionable  to  imitate  the  great  Greek  masters.  Before  the 
time  of  Ambrose  while  a  small  number  tried  to  practice  the 
whole  of  Paul's  philosophy  of  self-effacement  and  the  abandon- 
ment of  all  that  the  world  holds  valuable,  after  his  time,  faith 
became  the  only  virtue,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  revolt 
of  Luther,  the  church  might  have  died  like  an  old  tree  of 
rottenness  at  the  heart.  Dominated  by  the  philosophy  of  Paul 
as  interpreted  by  Jerome,  Augustine  and  Ambrose,  the  products 
of  the  intellectual  labor  and  the  patient  industry  of  artistic 
genius,  which  beautified,  enriched  and  ennobled  Greece  and 
Rome  for  centuries,  were  under  the  dominance  of  Paul,  as 
interpreted  by  Jerome,  Augustine  and  Ambrose,  buried  under 
the  dust  there  to  lie  until  a  Mohammedan  spade  dug  them  up. 
It  is  written  in  that  allegorical  poem  of  John  the  Presbyter, 
called  the  Book  of  Revelation  that  there  was  silence  in  heaven 
for  the  space  of  half  an  hour.  Put  your  ear  now  to  the 
trumpet  of  time  and  listen  to  the  sounds  that  flow  on  the 
summer  breezes  of  many  centuries.  In  the  distance  you  hear 
the  echo  of  the  sepulchral  voice  of  the  priest  and  the  mournful 
chant  of  monastic  prisoners.  The  tools  of  the  sculptor  are 
silent.  You  cannot  hear  the  movement  of  the  painter's  brush 
In  vain  do  you  strain  your  ear  to  try  to  catch  the  sound  of 
the  voice  of  the  political  orator  or  dramatic  artist.  And  if  your 
amorous  or  patriotic  soul  should  prompt  you  to  try  to  catch 
a  melodious  strain  from  the  lute  of  an  epic  or  love-impassioned 
poet,  you  listen  in  vain.  A  silence  as  dead  as  the  grave,  dis- 
turbed by  no  sound  save  that  of  the  voice  of  the  priest,  the 
clash  of  sword  blades,  the  twisting  of  the  wheels  of  torture 
and  the  clank  of  chains.  But  Arabian  enterprise  dug  up  some 
of  the  treasures  of  Grecian  lore  from  beneath  the  dust  of  ages, 
and  putting  them  on  the  points  of  their  spears  shoved  them 
down  the  throats  of  Christian  soldiers  on  the  plains  of  Palestine. 
Bagdad  in  the  tenth  century  under  the  Mohammedan  Caliphs 
was  the  first  seat  of  artistic  and  scientific  learning  that  had 
existed  since  the  time  that  Hypatia  was  brutally  murdered  at 
Alexandria.  Refinement  and  art  culture  were  carried  from  this 


Man  and  the  Earth  135 

famous  seat  of  learning  to  Cordova  in  Spain.  From  Cordova 
the  first  wave  of  artistic  and  scientific  thought  made  its  way 
into  western  Europe. 

Another  wave,  rolling  directly  from  Bagdad,  overwhelmed  the 
first  onslaught  of  the  Crusaders.  Once  more  from  the  schools 
of  Cordova  philosophy  and  art  sent  another  wave  that  pierced 
the  heart  of  Christendom.  Art  and  skepticism  now  marched 
hand  in  hand.  The  poet  took  up  his  pen  and  soon  the  experi- 
mental lines  were  traced.  Slowly  the  child  of  genius  labored  to 
catch  the  tints  of  blinding  colors.  Slowly  he  moved  his  chisel 
in  tracing  the  forms  of  animals  and  men.  Slowly  the  voice 
was  tuned  to  sink  in  softest  cadence  and  to  soar  aloft  along 
the  higher  notes  of  music's  staff.  The  seeds  of  art  are  sown 
anew,  and  when  the  summer's  sun  of  Mother  Genius  touched 
the  tender  twigs  with  smiles  of  gladness,  the  face  of  nature 
changed  from  a  countenance  deformed  by  mental  thorns  and 
thistles  to  fields  of  fairest  flowers  and  blossoming  groves,  and 
rippling  brooks,  and  perfumed  air  laden  with  the  sounds  of 
social  music.  Popes  now  fought  against  kings  for  continued 
supreme  power,  the  only  means  by  which  the  advancing  wave 
of  freedom  could  be  overthrown.  And  kings  fought  for  inde- 
pendence against  the  Pope.  And  whilst  combat  raged  Averroes 
sowed  the  seed  of  skeptical  philosophy.  Greece  and  Rome 
arose  from  the  dead  and  the  amorous  songs  about  their  social 
gods  and  goddesses  soon  pulled  the  mask  of  slavish  super- 
stition from  the  brow  of  the  fairest  portion  of  humanity.  A 
revolution  in  the  intellectual  and  religious  life  of  Europe  began 
after  the  fall  of  Constantinople.  The  Arabian  philosophers  had 
carried  the  torch  of  learning  into  Spain  much  earlier,  but  it 
was  not  until  Christian  Europe  had  been  battered  on  the  east 
and  western  flanks,  that  the  iron-handed  sovereignty  of  the 
church  of  Rome  began  to  be  defied.  Scarcely  had  the  last 
Moor  been  driven  out  of  Spain,  than  Columbus  opened  the 
gates  of  a  new  world.  Then  that  intrepid  seagod,  Magellan, 
demonstrated  the  rotundity  of  the  earth.  The  atmosphere  now 
because  pregnant  with  enterprise.  Man  had  awakened  from  the 
slumber  of  the  dark  ages.  Luther  defied  the  ecclesiastical 
cohorts  of  Rome.  Henry  the  Eighth,  that  burly  monarch, 
performed  an  act  of  civilization  greater  than  he  knew.  If  he 
did  not  purify  society,  he  helped  most  essentially  to  destroy 


136  Modernism 

a  power  that  was  more  cruel,  more  debauched,  more  dreaded 
than  himself.  He  crushed  the  Papal  power  in  Great  Britain 
and  Protestantism  became  a  fact.  Protestantism  now  burst 
upon  the  world  with  a  fanatic  fury  only  paralleled  by  the  march 
of  the  first  Mohammed. 

Religion  assumed  the  character  of  a  seething  volcano  in  many 
places.  The  ingenious  but  savage  Calvin,  whose  mind  was  filled 
with  the  ambiguous  mutterings  of  the  bloody  prophets  of  Judea 
and  the  insane  spirit  of  Paul  raised  the  standard  of  revolt 
against  Luther  as  well  as  Roman  Catholicism.  Again  were  the 
arts  struck  down,  again  were  men  and  women  called  upon  to 
shrink  in  slavish  terror  from  the  wrath  of  Jehovah,  to  walk 
the  earth  in  fear  and  trembling  and  to  thank  the  Lord  for  all 
the  cruel  sufferings  he  heaped  upon  their  undeserving  heads. 
Although  the  cry  of  faith  was  still  the  loudest,  a  reformation 
in  the  morals  of  men  began  to  take  root.  Copernicus  inspired 
by  the  voyage  of  Magellan,  which  proved  the  spherical  form 
of  the  earth  beyond  any  power  of  dispute,  using  the  suggestions 
of  all  others  who  had  no  knowledge  of  this  fact,  said  the  sun 
was  the  center  of  the  planetary  system.  Pythagoras  using  the 
idea  of  a  central  fire  which  had  been  evolved  by  an  Indian 
philosopher,  made  this  fire  the  center  around  which  the  sun, 
the  planets  and  all  the  stars  revolved. 

At  a  much  later  time,  the  causes  which  suggested  the  idea 
of  a  central  fire  were  not  known,  the  Pythagorean  school  then 
supposing  Pythagoras  meant  that  the  sun  was  the  central  object, 
taught  that  doctrine.  The  history  of  astronomy  through  all  the 
time  afterwards  included  this  idea  of  the  Pythagoreans,  and  al- 
though it  was  condemned  by  Augustine  and  most  of  the  church 
fathers  who  gave  any  attention  to  astronomy,  yet  it  lived  in 
the  history  of  astronomy.  The  spherical  shape  of  the  earth, 
had  been  taught  in  the  Alexandrian  schools  long  before  the 
Christians  had  any  say  in  these  matters,  but  when  they  did  have 
something  to  say  it  was  in  favor  of  a  flat  earth.  The  positive 
proof  of  the  earth  being  round  being  a  settled  fact,  this  fact 
did  not  need  much  other  proof  to  sustain  the  heliocentric  theory. 
However,  the  church  teachers  had  been  teaching  a  flat  earth, 
and  that  the  earth  was  the  center  of  the  universe.  But  Coperni- 
cus had  no  public  defender  until  Giordano  Bruno  escaped  from 
his  convent  cell,  and  with  a  soul  more  aspiring  and  enthusi- 


Man  and  the  Earth  137 

astic  than  Hannibal,  entered  the  intellectual  arena,  shattered 
the  crystal  vault  of  heaven  into  fragments  and  established  a 
new  heaven  and  new  earth,  and  from  the  burning  embers  of 
his  charred  corpse  science  again  arose  to  life.  Galileo,  with 
greater  opportunities  fearing  the  fate  of  Bruno  in  his  old  age, 
recanted  the  doctrine  that  the  earth  moves.  The  superstitious 
halo  that  enveloped  the  person  of  kings,  princes  and  ecclesi- 
astics, soon  became  the  target  of  the  humorous  Rabelais  and 
others.  Poets,  dramatists,  philosophers,  and  political  economists, 
leaving  the  field  of  religion  to  kings,  priests  and  ministers,  bore 
the  advancing  wave  of  human  aspirations  and  progress  onward 
until  it  broke  with  tempestuous  fury  on  the  aged  walls  of  social 
power  and  crystalized  privilege.  The  continent  of  America 
which  had  arisen  from  the  sea  like  the  sudden  appearance  of 
a  blazing  comet,  caused  the  minds  of  thinking  men  in  Europe 
to  cast  their  eyes  to  the  west  toward  the  fabled  Isles  of  the 
Blessed.  In  time  they  heard  of  two  larger  islands,  one  north 
the  other  south.  The  northwestern  part  of  the  southern  island 
and  the  southwestern  part  of  the  northern  island  were  inhabited 
by  people  who  were  wealthy  in  gold,  silver  and  cultivated  lands. 
A  small  number  of  Spanish  adventurers  with  some  horses 
and  firearms,  neither  of  which  the  inhabitants  had  ever  seen 
the  like,  appeared  suddenly  in  their  country.  The  priests  of 
these  people  had  been  educated  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Avatar 
system,  and  the  prophets  of  these  people  had  announced,  before 
the  invasion  of  the  Spaniards,  that  the  time  approached  for 
the  appearance  of  their  Messiah.  In  consequence  of  this  belief 
by  the  people,  the  Spanish  adventurers  robbed  them  of  their  gold 
and  silver  and  not  until  they  had  murdered  thousands  of  them 
did  they  offer  any  resistance  to  them.  Thirteen  hundred  years 
before  these  Spanish  adventurers  landed  in  Mexico  the  Jews  who 
had  imbibed  the  doctrine  of  the  Indian  Fakers  about  Avatars, 
believing  that  one  of  these  Avatars  was  going  to  redeem  their 
country  from  the  dominion  of  Rome,  commenced  a  war  that 
almost  annihilated  the  Jewish  race  in  a  vain  struggle  suggested 
by  a  prediction  or  prophesy  contained  in  their  sacred  books. 
And  here  again  in  Mexico  and  Peru  the  same  doctrine  had 
crossed  the  ocean  and  through  its  blighting  influence  an  innocent 
people  became  the  victims  of  priest-craft  and  another  race  of 
human  beings  was  annihilated  under  similar  circumstances.  The 


138  Modernism 

people  who  settled  our  own  country  came  from  the  British  Isles 
and  other  parts  of  Europe  to  an  uncultivated  wilderness  where 
they  expected  to  gain  a  living  by  the  cultivation  of  the  soil.  The 
time  finally  came  when  it  was  necessary  to  fight  for  their  freedom 
against  the  King  of  England  who  claimed  to  rule  the  country 
by  divine  right,  declaring  that  all  just  government  should  be 
derived  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  Being  victorious 
in  their  fight  for  liberty,  they  made  this  maxim  the  cornerstone 
of  their  government,  and  most  of  the  officers  who  were  selected 
to  execute  the  laws  tyvere  elected  by  the  voice  or  vote  of  the 
people. 

Having  lived  a  hundred  and  twenty-six  years  through  wars 
and  peace,  during  which  the  people  have  reaped  the  benefit  de- 
rived from  discoveries  in  the  arts  and  sciences,  which  have 
broadened  the  vision  of  man  by  obtaining  a  truthful  knowledge 
of  his  own  history  and  that  of  the  earth,  and  the  unlimited  extent 
of  the  stellar  universe.  The  hard  and  continuous  toil  by  poorly 
fed  men  and  women,  is  gradually  disappearing.  Many  things 
that  were  once  the  luxuries  of  the  rich  are  now  common  to  the 
families  of  the  mechanic  and  expert  laborer.  Night  has  been 
turned  into  day  through  the  use  of  electricity.  Cars  propelled 
up  steep  grades  by  its  application.  Mountains  and  the  streets 
in  large  cities  tunneled,  also  broad  rivers  tunneled,  thus  the 
means  of  travel  and  transportation  have  increased  to  meet  every 
demand  of  the  public.  Through  the  application  of  steam  and 
electricity  on  railroad  and  telegraph  lines  space  has  been  prac- 
tically annihilated.  You  can  sit  in  your  own  room  or  office 
and  converse  with  your  friends  who  are  many  miles  away. 
The  wood  chopper  in  his  cabin  on  the  prairie  a  hundred  miles 
from  any  other  habitation,  through  the  horn  of  his  phonograph 
may  hear  distinctly  the  solos  of  the  great  singers,  the  music 
of  marching  bands,  and  the  humorous  dialogues  of  actors  on  the 
stage.  The  art  of  healing  and  the  use  of  medicine  have  won- 
derfully advanced,  and  surgery  has  become  a  science  in  the 
hands  of  many  doctors.  These  are  only  a  few  of  the  miracles 
that  common  laymen  have  produced  for  the  benefit  of  man, 
while  the  priest  has  shut  the  door  on  improvement  in  his  super- 
stition. A  great  educator,  the  president  of  one  of  the  most 
honored  colleges  in  the  world,  on  delivering  his  farewell 
address  to  the  thousands  of  students  who  spent  some  of  their 


Man  and  the  Earth  139 

time  in  the  college  over  which  he  presided,  believing  that  his 
useful  life  as  an  educator  could  not  be  fittingly  closed  without 
imparting  to  the  great  army  that  had  loved  to  hear  his  voice, 
the  wisdom  that  experience  and  knowledge  had  made  him  the 
interpreter  of;  knowing  that  all  the  gods  that  had  been  wor- 
shipped for  thousands  of  years,  were  priest-made  gods,  as  were 
the  religious  cults  that  sustained  them;  and  seeing  about  him 
the  wonderful  miracles  produced  through  the  arts  and  sciences 
by  laymen,  he  prophesied  that  all  these  priest-made  gods  and 
religions  would  be  swept  away.  That  the  superstition,  by  which 
the  conspirators  against  the  happiness  of  mankind  held  the  multi- 
tude in  mental  slavery  would  be  destroyed.  That  the  new  God 
and  the  new  religion,  would  be  the  hand-maids  of  the  arts  and 
sciences  in  eradicating  evil,  disseminating  truth,  and  in  the  pro- 
motion of  all  work  tending  to  make  the  world  a  fitting  habita- 
tion for  man.  For  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophesy  of  President 
Eliot,  let  us  pray. 

In  all  of  the  Protestant  denominations  there  are  preachers 
who  are  very  liberal,  and  some  of  them  practically  independent. 
In  the  Universalist  denomination,  the  liberals  are  in  the 
majority.  In  the  Unitarian  denomination,  there  are  preachers 
who  are  preaching  the  new  gospel  at  the  present  time,  and  the 
preachers  of  independent  congregations  have  been  preaching  the 
new  gospel  for  several  years. 


ALPHA  AND   OMEGA 

An  age  before  the  brow  of  man 

Was  bound  by  priestcraft's  snare, 
The  moon  revealed  the  natural  plan 

Of  wisdom  and  of  care. 
When  freezing  wind  the  burning  sun 

Subdued,  the  glowing  light 
Man's  praise  and  worship  won 

As  God  of  life  and  might. 

Aurora  bright  at  night  and  morn 

Deceptive  fires  reveal, 
The  infant  mind  the  fires  adorn 

With  potency  not  real. 
These  were  the  gods  that  he  could  see 

Most  useful  to  his  life, 
And  looking  up  he  learned  to  be 

Above  the  brutal  strife. 

Then  priestcraft  led  the  simple  clods 

From  wisdom's  path  for  pelf, 
Enslaved  the  mind  to  mimic  gods 

As  useless  as  himself. 
But  soon  the  power  that  taught  the  child 

Of  nature  to  adore, 
Must  break  the  charm  that  blinds  mankind 

And  priestcraft  rule  no  more. 


140 


NOTES 

A  great  part  of  what  this  book  contains  was  published  in  magazines 
from  lectures  delivered  by  the  writer,  from  twenty-five  up  to  ten  years  ago. 

OUR  SCHOOL  LAWS   ARE  NOT  PERFECT 

Our  common  school  system  should  provide  that  children  with  the  con- 
sent of  their  parents  should  be  permitted  to  give  up  school  attendance 
when  they  can  read,  write  and  practice  the  four  cardinal  rules  of 
arithmetic.  This  is  as  much  school  education  as  one  of  our  greatest 
presidents  secured. 

IS  ETHER  COLD? 

The  ice  and  snow  on  mountain  tops  can  be  accounted  for  by  the  con- 
tinual waves  of  cold  carried  from  the  ice  and  snow  at  the  north  and 
south  poles,  without  supposing  that  the  ether  which  permeates  all  space 
is  cold  which  may  be  of  a  negative  quality. 

CHURCH  REVENUE 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  collects  millions  of  dollars  every  year 
on  the  claim  that  it  can  remit  the  punishment  due  to  sin  and  crime. 
As  thriving  a  business  is  done  in  indulgences  to-day  in  Spain  as  when 
Luther  burned  the  Pope's  bull.  The  government  of  Spain  and  the  Spanish 
Church  are  still  in  the  dark  age. 

ORIENTAL  AND  HEATHEN  HONESTY 

The  American  author  of  "Round  the  World  to  Christian  Missions," 
says,  "Ashamed  as  I  am  to  acknowledge  it  as  a  citizen,  of  a  nominally 
Christian  country  it  is  a  fact  that  during  a  year  and  three-quarters  all 
over  Asia,  I  never  lost  a  dollar's  worth  of  goods;  but  the  stealings 
out  of  my  baggage  in  Europe  and  Great  Britain  in  less  than  a  year 
amounted  to  several  hundred  dollars  worth  of  goods." 

CONFESSION 

As  there  is  nothing  in  the  gospels  to  prove  that  Jesus  prohibited  women 
from  teaching  and  preaching,  there  is  no  positive  reason  why  women 
should  not  be  eligible,  at  least  to  the  office  of  confessor.  Outside  of 
the  Catholic  Church  the  idea  of  girls  and  women  confessing  to  men 
is  abhorrent. 

141 


142  Modernism 

THE   CARBON   COMET 

As  nothing  has  been  said  about  the  comet  that  produced  the  carboni- 
ferous age  we  will  make  a  few  suggestions  about  it.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  tail  of  a  comet  a  great  distance  from  its  head  would 
have  much  influence;  but  if  the  head  of  a  comet  containing  a  large 
amount  of  carbon  dioxide  was  less  than  a  million  miles  from  the  earth 
moving  in  the  same  direction  while  the  tail  was  sweeping  around  the 
earth  the  earth's  attraction  would  suck  all  the  carbon  dioxide  out  of 
the  comet.  The  great  disturbance  which  this  would  cause  in  our  at- 
mosphere and  the  interior  of  the  earth  would  cause  all  the  volcanoes  on 
the  earth  to  belch  out  immeasurable  volumes  of  carbon  dioxide  all  over 
the  earth.  When  the  disturbance  ceased  it  would  take  a  long  time  for 
the  earth  to  digest  this  gas,  and  when  the  atmosphere  had  become  clear 
again,  the  earth  would  have  passed  through  just  such  a  condition  as 
geology  shows  exists  in  the  carboniferous  strata. 

THE  FOUR  RACES   AND  THEIR  WANDERINGS 

It  should  not  be  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that  the  wanderings 
of  the  primitive  races  described  in  this  book  are  not  all  drawn  from 
historical  accounts,  but  that  the  gibbon,  orang,  chimpanzee  and  gorilla, 
stand  at  the  base  of  four  distinct  races  of  the  human  family  there  is 
much  more  evidence  than  has  ever  been  published  in  any  book,  is  a  fact. 

The  sun  is  the  great  electric  battery  which  sends  a  continual  stream 
of  imperceptible  substance  throughout  its  celestial  domain  to  all  the 
material  bodies  that  surround  it,  keeping  them  in  motion  and  at  essential 
distances  from  each  other.  Each  of  the  planets  also  performs  similar 
functions  in  minor  degrees.  Newton's  laws  and  forces  may  be  applied 
with  success  within  certain  limits,  but  they  cannot  account  for  every 
phenomenon  that  can  be  observed  by  the  naked  eye.  As  the  twin 
brother  of  astronomy  is  geology,  can  it  be  truly  said  that  the  great 
masters  of  this  science  have  proved  beyond  any  possible  cause  for  dis- 
pute, that  the  phenomena  or  causes  which  acted  in  producing  the  car- 
boniferous age  or  strata,  are  positively  known?  I  have  suggested  that 
it  was  caused  by  a  large  quantity  of  carbon  gas  which  had  been  gathered 
by  a  comet  from  unknown  sources  in  the  development  of  its  so-called 
tail  and  deposited  on  the  earth,  at  a  time  that  a  large  part  of  the  earth 
was  covered  with  a  shallow  bed  of  water.  Also  at  another  period  when 
man  had  begun  to  take  notice  of  natural  objects,  another  comet  collided 
with  the  moon  on  the  side  that  has  ever  since  been  presented  to  the 
earth,  its  tail  first  circled  the  north  pole,  but  immediately  swung  around 
to  the  south  sweeping  it  like  a  broom.  The  atmosphere  of  the  tail 
connecting  with  the  atmosphere  of  the  moon  and  earth  together,  formed 
a  funnel  through  which  all  the  water  on  the  moon  was  carried  to  the 
earth  charged  with  the  chlorine  gas  of  which  the  comet's  tail  was 
composed.  Prior  to  this  event  there  had  been  a  larger  amount  of  lime 
than  of  salt  in  our  ocean.  The  comet  hung  to  the  moon  as  long  as 


Notes  143 

its  orbit  and  the  earth's  or  moon's  orbit  ran  together;  when  they  sep- 
arated the  comet  continued  on  its  regular  course,  or  was  scattered  through 
space  as  meteoric  matter.  On  account  of  the  then  geographical  condi- 
tion of  the  earth,  the  extra  quantity  of  salt  water  coming  to  it,  pro- 
duced the  glacial  epoch.  It  might  be  the  extra  saltness  of  the  moon's 
water. 

When  some  geographical  changes  had  been  worked  out  through  the 
action  of  water  and  the  influence  of  the  sun,  the  glacial  formation 
gradually  disappeared.  The  side  of  the  moon  facing  the  earth  having 
been  burned  almost  to  the  condition  or  substance  of  coke,  became  much 
lighter  in  weight  than  the  opposite  side  causing  that  side  to  remain 
unseen  to  us.  Or  if  the  greater  quantity  of  water  on  the  moon's  surface 
had  been  on  this  side,  it  may  be  that  the  natural  affinity  of  this  side 
for  the  water  that  was  taken  from  it  causes  this  side  of  the  moon  to 
continually  face  the  earth.  This  latter  is  not  a  very  scientific  explana- 
tion, but  the  word  affinity  contains  an  idea,  which  a  more  scientific 
explanation  would  need,  a  more  elaborate  statement  than  a  brief  footnote 
calls  for. 

THE  JEWISH  LEGEND  AS  RELATED  BY   SILAS  THE  MONK 

To  the  original  copy  very  little  has  been  added  and  considerable  has 
been  left  out  for  the  sake  of  brevity.  The  first  part  of  the.  Revelation 
of  John  was  written  in  the  early  part  of  the  second  century  and  the 
second  part  during  or  after  the  last  Jewish  revolt  under  the  approval 
of  the  acting  high  priest,  the  Rabbi  Akiba,  and  under  the  command  of 
Simon  Bar  Cochebas,  who  the  writer  ambiguously  refers  to  as  Anti- 
Christ.  Less  space  is  also  given  to  the  tour  of  Cepheus  and  his  com- 
panions, for  although  they  were  well  received  in  some  places,  yet  in 
others  particularly  in  Judea,  they  were  sometimes  driven  out  of  towns 
where  the  pharisees  were  largely  predominant,  and  stoned,  some  of  them 
beaten  by  mobs.  They  were  frequently  driven  out  of  synagogues  when 
they  tried  to  speak  in  these  houses.  In  the  communities  where  any 
number  of  the  Essenes  joined  them  these  communities  were  organized 
by  them  and  those  who  were  members  divided  their  substance  so  that 
the  whole  community  lived  as  one  family.  Outside  of  these  communities 
they  lived  as  other  people  only  that  the  poor  were  never  allowed  to 
suffer  want  of  food  or  clothing,  which  was  supplied  by  those  who  could 
spare  some  part  of  their  usual  income.  Silas  the  monk  was  a  boy 
living  in  Jerusalem  when  the  war  broke  out  and  escaped  from  the 
city  nearly  at  the  end  of  the  war  almost  starved  to  death,  and  joined 
the  Christians  at  Alexandria  on  the  first  tour  of  Cepheus  and  his  com- 
panions and  shortly  after  went  to  Rome  where  he  heard  the  story  from 
James  who  had  been  a  friend  and  companion  of  John  the  Presbyter 
from  early  boyhood.  The  book  from  which  the  legend  was  taken  con- 
tained about  one  hundred  and  fifty  pages.  The  first  part  was  taken 
up  with  a  history  of  the  Jews  from  the  time  of  Esther. 


144  Modernism 

The  preface  to  the  history  stated  that  most  of  the  country  lying  west 
of  the  river  Jordan  and  the  salty  sea,  was  formerly  called  Israel  the 
country  name  of  the  planet  Saturn,  and  that  the  Jews  take  their  name 
from  the  country  of  Judea,  that  there  had  been  no  written  history  of 
the  Jews  until  those  who  were  sent  to  colonize  the  country  by  the  King 
of  Persia  had  written  it,  many  of  whom  had  been  taken  prisoners  of 
war  by  the  King  of  Babylon.  This  history  took  up  more  than  half 
of  the  book;  the  remainder  of  the  book  was  taken  up  with  Jewish  legends 
one  of  which  is  the  story  of  Silas  the  Monk,  which  remained  in  manu- 
script form  the  second  until  the  sixteenth  century  when  it  was  printed 
in  Hebrew,  the  same  as  the  manuscript  by  a  Jewish  printer  employed  in 
one  of  the  printing  establishments  of  Germany.  The  number  of  books  he 
printed  was  small  and  there  never  has  been  a  second  edition,  as  the 
receivers  of  the  books  were  liberal  Jews  who  had  been  well  educated 
and  never  allowed  a  copy  to  go  for  one  hour  out  of  their  hands  until 
they  found  proper  persons  near  the  end  of  their  days  to  present  them 
to  or  will  them  to. 

PERSECUTIONS 

Those  who  have  read  the  writings  of  the  early  fathers  of  the  church, 
on  an  honest  examination  of  some  parts  of  some  of  these  writings 
where  special  persecution  of  Christians  is  intimated,  and  have  not  found 
in  the  writings  of  more  reliable  and  better  qualified  Christian  fathers 
that  these  special  persecutions  of  the  Christians,  except  in  local  and 
very  mild  degree  are  untrustworthy,  have  either  missed  the  o.^ject 
they  sought  or  have  made  mountains  out  of  mole  hills.  In  the  earliest 
age  of  the  church  the  Christians  were  confounded  with  the  Jews  whom 
the  Romans  through  a  long  experience  had  found  it  impossible  to  treat 
as  they  had  treated  other  people,  consequently  finding  it  necessary  to 
deal  harshly  with  them,  they  did  not  discriminate  between  what  might 
be  called  orthodox  and  unorthodox  Jews,  as  the  early  Christians  were 
regarded  as  merely  a  Jewish  sect.  But  in  the  time  of  Diocletian  it  was 
otherwise.  At  that  time  the  Church  had  come  under  the  dominion  of 
Paul.  Vast  hordes  of  men  were  flocking  to  Africa  as  hermits,  solitaires 
and  beggars,  and  monasteries  were  spreading  over  Europe  wherever 
any  number  of  Christians  existed.  All  those  performing  religious  func- 
tions, men  and  women,  or  acting  under  Christian  frenzy  were  celibates. 
As  the  constant  wars  of  the  Romans  necessitated  a  continued  call  for 
able-bodied  men,  this  drawing  from  the  marriage  state  a  large  number 
of  men  and  women  was  looked  upon  as  a  national  evil.  This  is  one 
of  the  causes  assigned  for  the  edict  of  Diocletian  against  the  Christians 
and  Manicheans.  There  may  have  been  others,  but  they  are  not  in 
evidence.  The  most  singular  thing  about  it  is  recorded  in  the  lives  of 
the  saints,  where  the  statement  is  made  that  the  holy  martyrs  were 
called  upon  to  worship  some  of  the  Roman  gods  and  if  they  refused 
to  do  so  they  were  imprisoned  and  if  they  continued  true  to  the  faith 
they  had  received,  they  were  executed  and  tortured. 


Notes  145 

Diocletian  was  a  sun  worshipper.  At  that  time  their  system  of  worship 
was  nearly  the  same,  if  not  exactly  so,  as  that  of  the  Mithraists.  There 
was  a  very  large  number  of  priests  and  bishops  for  a  small  number 
of  Christians  and  Manicheans,  and  it  was  against  these  that  the  edict 
was  directed.  The  officers  of  the  law  were  directed  to  arrest  any  of 
these  that  any  proof  could  be  obtained  against.  Every  one  arrested 
had  an  examination  before  a  magistrate,  and  if  he  gave  up  his  copy 
of  the  scriptures  and  all  other  religious  possession  he  was  discharged. 
He  was  not  called  upon  to  worship  Diocletian's  or  any  other  person's 
god.  He  was  merely  advised  not  to  perform  the  functions  of  a  priest 
or  bishop  again  under  severer  penalty,  but  I  have  not  found  where  any 
except  bishops  were  arrested.  In  the  districts  of  which  the  city  of 
Milan  was  the  magisterial  seat,  two  bishops  had  courted  martyrdom  and 
received  that  honor. 

Diocletian  was  a  brave  soldier  and  a  distinguished  general.  It  is  said 
that  it  was  one  of  his  colleagues  that  suggested  or  insisted  on  the  edict 
against  the  Christians,  but  he  soon  got  ashamed  of  it  and  resigned  his 
position  as  emperor  and  retired  to  private  life,  when  the  persecution 
immediately  ceased,  but  the  law  was  not  repealed.  After  the  victory 
of  Constantine,  about  twelve  years  later,  at  Milvian  Bridge  which  made 
him  emperor  of  the  west,  he  called  Licinius,  the  emperor  of  the  east 
to  a  conference  where  they  both  signed  a  decree  in  the  city  of  Milan 
in  313,  restoring  all  forfeited  religious  and  civil  rights  and  privileges 
to  Christians.  It  seems  by  the  statement  of  this  decree  that  the  Chris- 
tians had  at  some  time  forfeited  their  civil  and  religous  rights,  but  a 
footnote  cannot  be  used  as  a  book. 

CONSTANTINE 

Constantine  as  a  soldier  had  grown  up  under  the  eye  of  Diocletian, 
being  sent  to  his  court  as  a  hostage  when  his  father  received  com- 
mand of  the  Roman  army  of  Gaul,  Spain,  Germany  and  England,  or 
possibly  only  a  part  of  this  territory,  at  first.  Educated  at  this  court 
and  when  he  was  old  enough  he  was  appointed  to  a  minor  position, 
but  on  account  of  the  ability  he  displayed  in  every  position  he  was 
placed,  he  rose  to  a  position  in  the  army  when  he  was  only  twenty-two 
years  of  age  equivalent  to  that  of  a  major-general  in  our  army.  The 
manner  in  which  he  was  rewarded  for  his  military  achievements  by 
Diocletian  certainly  caused  him  to  regard  his  commander  and  emperor 
with  no  small  amount  of  affection,  and  as  a  member  of  his  court 
family  Diocletian  was  the  guardian  of  the  young  man,  and  with 
Diocletian  he  attended  divine  services,  and  when  Diocletian  retired  to 
private  life  he  continued  to  practice  the  same  religion  when  under  the 
command  of  another  general.  But  when  he  returned  to  his  father  and 
mother  after  many  years'  absence  he  understood  for  the  first  time  what 
the  edict  of  Diocletian  meant.  When  it  was  issued  it  is  likely  that 
he  regarded  it  as  being  just,  as  we  do  not  know  on  what  grounds  the 


146  Modernism 

Christians  had  been  deprived  of  the  ordinary  rights  and  privileges  of 
other  people  in  the  empire,  but  in  conversation  with  his  father  he  under- 
stood that  the  practice  of  the  religion  of  his  parents  was  a  crime  in  the 
eye  of  the  law;  so  to  efface  that  reproach  under  which  his  relatives  and 
their  nearest  friends  rested — not  that  he  believed  in  their  religion — when 
he  became  emperor  of  the  west,  he  and  his  colleague,  Licinius,  signed 
the  edict  repealing  all  the  laws  that  had  been  recorded  against  the  Chris- 
tians. Nearly  all  writers  except  Catholics,  seem  to  regard  this  act  of 
Constantine  as  one  of  pure  policy,  as  if  a  small  minority  of  the  people, 
without  social  standing,  education  or  wealth,  were  pandered  to,  with 
no  acknowledgment  of  the  value  of  the  public  sentiment  of  the  vast 
majority  of  the  common  people,  all  the  wealth  of  the  pagans,  the  force 
of  the  highly  educated  class  and  all  the  nobility  were  to  be  regarded 
as  of  no  consequence.  But  although  Constantine  patronized  the  religion 
of  his  parents  and  his  Catholic  relatives  took  charge  of  the  religious 
affairs  of  his  court,  still  he  himself  was  no  Christian,  and  was  not 
baptized  until  the  end  of  his  life  approached,  and  that  act  was  performed 
by  an  Arian  bishop.  His  edict  making  Sunday  a  legal  holiday  shows 
that  he  was  at  that  time  a  sun  worshipper.  Constantine  was  a  great 
politician  and  when  he  signed  the  decree  of  313  he  had  something  up 
his  sleeve  that  would  counteract  that  impolitic  act,  but  it  had  been  given 
out  before  the  signing  of  the  repeal  to  soften  the  minds  of  the  pagans. 
In  fact  immediately  after  the  battle  of  Milvian  Bridge  in  conversation 
with  one  of  the  noted  interpreters  of  dreams,  of  which  Rome  had  a 
small  army  he  said  he  had  a  vision  or  dream  on  the  night  before  the  battle 
in  which  he  saw  a  cross  on  the  clouds  and  above  it  was  displayed  in 
large  letters,  "  By  this  Conquer."  Although  there  was  a  number  of 
men  who  were  students  of  literature  in  the  empire  who  took  no  stock 
in  the  value  of  anything  connected  with  religion,  yet  this  class  was 
very  small  as  there  were  not  many  who  did  not  place  more  or  less 
reliance  on  dreams  and  providential  incidents.  The  account  of  this  dream 
of  Constantine's  spread  rapidly,  and  knowing  how  the  Christian  religion 
was  despised  by  the  educated  pagans  and  the  leaders  of  all  the  cults, 
he  had  to  give  some  reason  for  his  patronage  of  it.  None  of  them 
would  condemn  him  for  performing  an  act  which  they  thought  sprang 
from  an  honest  motive.  And  as  much  reliance  was  placed  on  important 
dreams  and  an  expert  interpretation  of  them,  his  pretended  vision  of 
the  cross  could  be  used  as  an  excuse  for  the  act  of  repeal,  and  patronage 
of  the  Christian  religion.  These  acts  were  regarded  as  his  interpreta- 
tion of  the  vision.  His  acts  for  a  long  time  were  only  personal  favors 
that  did  not  disturb  any  of  the  advantages  the  pagans  had  gained  by 
long  years  of  special  privileges  and  favors  from  the  emperors  and  the 
people.  And  although  it  cannot  be  observed  that  in  laying  the  founda- 
tion of  a  new  era,  it  was  of  any  spiritual  advantage  to  Christianity,  yet 
from  a  political  standpoint  his  endorsement  of  it  was  of  incalculable 
importance. 


Notes  147 

In  war  and  politics  Constantine  was  the  most  singularly  fortunate  of 
any  man  we  have  any  record  of.  His  single  failing  was  rashness.  His 
wise  discernment  and  quick  decision  in  war  and  politics  saved  him  much 
trouble  and  the  loss  of  lives,  but  the  same  quickness  of  decision  in  his 
domestic  affairs,  materially  shortened  the  life  of  imperial  Rome.  The 
son  of  his  first  wife,  Crispus,  even  from  his  boyhood  displayed  the 
possession  of  military  ingenuity  and  valor  whenever  he  took  part  in 
his  father's  campaigns,  and  gave  promise  of  being  the  one  man  who 
could  take  his  father's  place  and  keep  the  vast  domain  under  one  head, 
but  through  the  jealousy  of  his  stepmother  who  had  three  sons,  she 
wished  might  be  preferred  before  her  stepson  through  that  one  failing 
of  rashness  of  decision  in  domestic  affairs,  where  a  long  head  always 
fares  best,  Crispus  fell  a  victim,  and  the  empire  was  divided  between 
the  three  sons  of  the  foolish  woman,  which  sealed  the  fate  of  the 
empire;  for  after  Constantine,  Rome  never  produced  an  emperor  who 
was  both  a  soldier  and  a  statesman.  In  the  Roman  law  the  penalty  was 
death  for  a  married  man  and  woman  to  have  criminal  connection.  And 
the  same  penalty  for  the  violation  of  a  free  woman.  In  the  philosophy 
of  Epictetus  these  cases  were  modified,  and  divorce  could  be  granted 
against  the  proved  criminal,  but  mercy  should  be  shown  to  the  guilty. 
As  the  writers  of  the  gospels  were  students  of  Epictetus,  Jesus  exempli- 
fies the  philosophy  of  Epictetus,  in  the  case  of  the  woman  charged 
with  adultery. 

Before  closing  with  Constantine,  Diocletian  and  persecution,  I  will  call 
attention  to  a  meeting  of  Catholic  bishops  in  305  immediately  after  the 
resignation  of  Diocletian,  twelve  in  number.  It  was  called  at  Cirta 
for  the  ordination  of  a  bishop  for  that  town  by  Secundus  Primate  of 
Numedia,  the  place  where  Diocletian  was  installed  emperor.  When  the 
meeting  opened  Secundus  began  an  inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  the 
assembled  bishops  during  the  persecution.  One  by  one  he  accused  his 
colleagues  of  having  saved  their  lives  by  delivering  to  the  pagan  officers 
the  scriptures  and  other  sacred  belongings.  They  all  admitted  the  crime 
until  he  came  to  the  last  bishop  a  half-savage  named  Perpurius.  "  You 
are  accused  of  murdering  your  two  nephews,"  said  Secundus.  "Yes,  I 
did  kill  them  and  I  will  kill  any  one  who  attempts  to  upset  me," 
answered  Perpurius,  and  added,  that  "  if  Secundus  tried  to  bully  him 
as  he  did  the  others  "  he  would  inform  the  meeting  of  the  way  Secundus 
had  saved  his  own  life  during  the  persecution.  Secundus  said  "  he  would 
not  try  to  explain  his  conduct  to  this  meeting,  that  he  would  leave  that 
matter  to  God."  The  bishops  who  had  saved  their  lives  in  this  way 
and  other  ways  were  called  "Traditors."  You  can  form  your  own 
opinion  about  the  persecution  and  also  as  to  the  character  of  some  who 
had  been  deemed  worthy  of  being  bishops. 

From  Constantine's  dream  on  the  night  before  the  battle  of  Milvian 
Bridge,  in  time  the  story  grew  like  that  of  the  three  crows,  from  a 
dream  or  vision  to  an  unnatural  phenomenon  occurring  at  noon  day  and 
observed  by  his  whole  army.  And  the  reliable  ?  Eusebius  tells  us  that 


148     -  Modernism 

the  emperor  told  it  to  him  many  years  after  the  occurrence.  Few  if 
any  historians  seem  to  comprehend  the  political  significance  of  that  vision 
or  dream.  Not  knowing  until  fully  successful  that  he  would  be  the 
emperor  of  the  west  and  Pontifex  Maximus,  it  is  not  likely  that  any 
plan  had  been  fixed  in  his  mind  as  to  what  excuse  he  would  give  for 
repealing  the  laws  against  the  Christians.  But  when  he  was  successful 
the  value  of  a  dream  or  vision,  as  such  things  were  called,  it  is  likely 
struck  him  as  being  of  the  greatest  value.  Of  course  it  was  a  fake, 
but  it  was  the  most  valuable  excuse  he  could  offer  to  defend  his  political 
reputation  against  the  adverse  sentiment  of  the  power  of  the  wealth, 
intellect,  nobility  and  the  vast  majority  of  the  Roman  people.  The  use 
of  the  fake  story  for  the  purpose  of  unfurling  the  banner  of  the  Sacred 
Labarum  did  not  enter  his  mind  at  first,  as  no  such  banner  was  exhibited 
to  the  army  until  ten  years  later  in  his  war  on  Licinius.  Through  the 
agency  of  astrologers  and  all  classes  of  fortune  tellers  his  dream  had 
been  carried  to  the  ends  of  the  empire,  and  at  this  late  day  had  grown 
to  the  phenomenon  in  the  heavens  at  midday  in  the  presence  of  his 
whole  army  with  this  addition  he  may  have  thought  that  the  exhibition 
of  the  so-called  Sacred  Labarum  or  banner  of  the  cross  might  work 
to  his  advantage. 

THE   HELIOCENTRIC   THEORY 

The  book  of  Copernicus  was  dedicated  to  Pope  Paul  III.  I  am 
prejudiced  against  the  name.  It  is  not  easy  to  be  entirely  impartial 
or  do  exact  justice  to  any  priest  of  that  name,  especially  when  he  selects 
it  for  himself.  He  was  appointed  a  cardinal  in  1493,  by  Pope  Alexander 
VI,  that  exemplar  of  virtues  and  admirer  of  virginity,  on  account  of 
his  admiration  for  Giula,  the  beautiful  sister  of  Paul.  This  incident 
caused  Paul  to  be  nicknamed  Cardinal  Petticoat.  He  was  elected  Pope 
in  1534.  At  that  time  the  phrase  modernism  was  in  the  air  and  in  the 
selection  of  his  cabinet,  to  please  both  parties  he  selected  what  he  thought 
was  an  equal  number  of  progressionists  and  reactionaries,  but  he  made 
a  mistake  as  the  reactionists  got  control  and  marked  out  the  policy  that 
was  pursued.  In  1540  he  instituted  the  order  of  Jesuits  and  two  years 
later  he  established  the  Roman  Inquisition.  Was  he  not  a  fine  man 
for  Copernicus  to  dedicate  his  book  to?  Some  of  the  men  who  have 
been  selected  to  write  article  for  encyclopedias  were  as  unfit  for  the 
work  they  were  selected  to  perform,  as  an  ass  would  be  to  play  the 
part  of  an  intelligent  dog.  According  to  one  of  the  most  popular  of 
these  the  writers  who  publicly  sustained  the  theory  of  Copernicus  were 
a  few  letter  writers,  and  no  mention  is  made  of  the  man  who  delivered 
lectures  in  many  of  the  most  populous  cities  of  Europe,  sustaining  and 
explaining  the  theory  and  who  had  debated  the  subject  for  three  days 
at  Oxford  with  several  opponents  who  he  claims  were  very  narrow 
minded  and  knew  little  on  the  subject  they  tried  to  talk  about.  This 
was  Giordano  Bruno. 


Notes  149 

He  also  wrote  a  pamphlet  on  the  tides  in  connection  with  the  theory 
in  which  he  says  that  the  moon  on  her  journey  through  the  heavens 
attracts  and  draws  the  water  of  the  seas  after  her.  As  well  as  lecturing 
on  the  Copernican  theory,  he  wrote  a  book  which  was  published  in 
Paris  on  the  same  subject  with  title  of  Evening  Conversations.  Bruno's 
published  works  were  scattered  through  England,  France,  Germany  and 
Italy  and  when  he  was  delivered  to  the  officers  of  the  Inquisition  at 
Rome,  copies  of  these  works  were  gathered  by  his  enemies  and  brought 
to  Rome  for  the  inspection  of  his  murderers.  What  he  suffered  during 
the  seven  years  he  was  incarcerated  in  a  dungeon  before  he  was  burned 
at  the  stake  in  the  city  of  Rome,  no  one  will  ever  know.  It  now  became 
the  duty  of  every  good  Catholic  to  destroy  his  books  as  he  had  been  excom- 
municated and  his  works  condemned.  But  the  books  were  not  all  burned. 
The  Jesuits  knew  enough  to  keep  copies  of  them,  and  when  the  proper  time 
came  to  lay  claim  to  some  of  his  discoveries  as  did  their  College  of  Coimbra 
claim  on  their  work  on  the  tides.  How  different  was  the  life  of  Bruno 
from  that  of  Galileo.  Galileo  had  through  his  published  works  and  his 
teaching  as  a  professor  of  science  amassed  wealth.  He  was  received 
in  the  palaces  of  noblemen,  lay  and  cleric  as  more  than  an  equal,  and 
his  popularity  spread  throughout  Europe  as  the  greatest  astronomer  that 
ever  lived,  but  in  time  he  forgot  the  age  he  was  living  in  and  the  place 
where  he  was  living.  Prompted  by  an  irrepressible  desire  to  be  pub- 
licly acclaimed  the  greatest  man  the  world  had  ever  produced  in  the 
realm  of  science  he  wrote  a  book  which  he  thought  would  perform 
that  wonderful  service  and  had  it  published  without  the  sanction  of 
the  inquisitors  which  put  an  end  to  his  honorable  career.  The  book 
elaborated  his  idea  on  the  flux  and  reflux  of  the  tides,  which  he  held 
demonstrated  the  heliocentric  theory  and  which  is  not  worth  the  paper 
it  is  printed  on.  It  is  in  dialogue  form.  The  dialogue  is  between  three 
men,  two  learned  and  one  a  dogmatic  and  peripatetic  simpleton,  in  which 
he  caricatured  the  Pope  putting  words  into  his  mouth  which  he  had 
used  in  a  conversation  with  Galileo  in  his  own  palace.  The  caricature 
and  sarcasm  were  so  palpable  that  the  Pope  and  all  his  friends  did 
not  have  to  look  through  a  microscope  to  detect  it.  Under  the  circum- 
stances the  Pope  would  have  been  a  pattern  of  exalted  patience,  humility 
and  charity  to  forgive  and  forget  such  an  inexcusable  act.  Pope  Urban 
did  not  happen  to  be  such  a  pattern,  so  secured  a  priest  to  call  the 
attention  of  the  Inquisition  to  Galileo's  works.  It  condemned  him  as 
the  writer  and  the  heliocentric  theory  as  heresy,  but  ordered  no  further 
punishment  than  that  he  must  recite  the  seven  penitential  psalms  once 
a  week  for  three  years,  after  he  had  reprobated,  cursed  and  retracted  all 
that  he  had  written  on  that  subject.  It  was  pretty  hard  on  the  old 
man.  But  even  under  that  great  shadow  he  felt  some  days  that  life 
was  worth  what  he  paid  for  it. 

Although  the  voyage  of  Magellan  had  demonstrated  the  rotundity  of 
the  earth,  and  did  more  to  inspire  philosophers  in  accepting  what  was 
called  at  the  time  the  Pythagorean  theory  than  anything  else  that  had 


1 50  Modernism 

been  discovered  or  suggested,  still  there  was  a  long  fight  before  it 
became  a  settled  question  or  problem.  The  man  who  ended  the  strife, 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  now  became  the  great  scientific  philosopher  of  the 
time.  One  of  the  best  friends  Galileo  had  in  Rome  during  the  time 
he  was  trying  to  convince  the  Pope  and  his  friends  that  the  scriptures 
endorse  the  heliocentric  theory,  was  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  a  Jesuit. 
Giving  his  views  to  the  cardinal  on  this  subject,  the  cardinal  advised 
him  to  leave  such  questions  to  the  theologians  as  that  was  their  proper 
function.  "  When  a  demonstration  shall  be  found  to  establish  the  earth's 
motion,  it  will  be  proper  then  to  interpret  the  sacred  scriptures  other- 
wise than  they  have  been  hitherto  in  those  passages  where  mention  is 
made  of  the  stability  of  the  earth  and  the  movement  of  the  heavens." 
Under  this  idea  of  interpreting  the  scriptures  the  Catholic  Church  can 
make  itself  solid  with  all  scientific  discoveries. 

WORSHIP  OF  AUGUSTUS  CESAR 

A  brief  but  good  account  of  the  Worship  of  Augustus  Caesar  will  be 
found  in  Alexander  Del  Mar's  work  under  that  title,  from  which  quota- 
tions have  been  frequently  made  by  the  writer. 

WHY  IS  MAN  HAIRLESS? 

No  scientist  has  ever  been  able  to  explain  why  man  is  hairless.  Yet 
nothing  is  more  simple  and  natural  than  the  explanation  that  our  most 
primitve  ancestors  destroyed  the  power  of  growing  hair  on  their  bodies 
by  bathing  in  a  lime  water  sea.  Of  course  the  sea  had  some  salt  in 
it,  but  the  main  mineral  substance  was  lime.  The  two  circular  seas 
surrounding  the  poles  were  probably  much  more  salt  than  lime. 

KNOWLEDGE 

It  is  a  positive  fact,  that  an  unschooled  child  knows  as  much  about 
God,  the  hereafter,  the  soul,  and  other  supposed  positively  known  matters 
relating  to  man's  duty  to  God,  as  the  most  intellectual  man  that  has 
ever  lived,  or  the  most  reverend  and  popular  person  on  earth,  either 
on  account  of  one  person  believing  in  his  knowledge  or  three  hundred 
million  believing  that  he  possesses  a  special  knowledge  in  these  matters. 
The  universe  presents  itself  to  the  mind  of  a  rational  being  as  the  living 
demonstration  of  intelligence.  And  as  man  in  a  very  small  degree 
seems  to  possess  a  part  of  that  intelligence,  he  cannot  reasonably  deny 
its  existence  in  the  world.  As  Lucretius  the  Roman  poet  says,  "  Nothing 
comes  from  nothing,"  therefore  it  would  be  nonsensical  to  say  that  the 
power  of  our  intellect  comes  from  nothing. 

ELECTION  OF  BISHOPS 

The  fights  of  factions  at  ward  caucuses  some  years  ago  were  humorous 
affairs  when  looking  from  the  outside,  and  sometimes  bad  and  serious 


Notes  i  151 

affairs,  but  they  were  nothing  to  compare  to  the  election  of  Christian 
bishops  in  wealthy  and  important  districts.  When  Damasus  was  elected 
bishop  of  Rome  384,  A.  D.  137  dead  bodies  were  found  on  the  floor 
of  the  Libenan  Basilica,  the  Church  of  St.  Maria  Maggiora,  the  morn- 
ing after  the  election. 

THE  PARACLETE 

To  fulfill  the  prophecy  in  the  gospel  that  the  Paraclete  would  come 
to  enlighten  the  Christians,  it  came  in  the  person  of  Montanus  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  second  century.  As  permanent  organs  of  the  Paraclete 
only  three  persons  were  recognized  (a  trinity) — Montanus,  Prisca  and 
Maximilla.  They  fixed  a  place  for  the  saints  to  gather  to  meet  the  Lord 
when  he  would  descend  on  a  cloud,  in  a  short  time.  Montanus  appeared 
at  Ardaban  in  Phrygia  bringing  revelations  of  the  spirit.  The  woman 
Maximilla,  was  much  greater  than  Montanus  as  an  exhibitor  of  the 
spiritual  power  within  her.  She  held  open  discussions  with  several  bishops 
of  the  church  and  worsted  them  all.  When  intense  opposition  was 
brought  against  her  she  cried  out  "  I  am  pursued  like  a  wolf."  Paul's 
classes  among  his  followers,  such  as  prophets,  and  tongues,  etc.,  gave 
rise  to  lots  of  fanatical  nonsense  and  this  spiritual  exhibition  was  one 
of  them.  When  the  time  approached  for  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  Maxi- 
milla assured  her  followers  and  enemies  that  she  would  live  to  see  the 
end.  "After  me  there  will  come  no  other  prophets  but  the  end."  Ter- 
tullian,  the  man  who  created  Christian  literature,  living  at  Carthage  in 
Africa,  was  struck  with  the  fanciful  exploits  of  these  visionaries  and 
took  so  strong  a  stand  in  their  favor  that  he  died  outside  of  the  church 
in  whose  defence  he  had  spent  his  life  with  all  the  intense  vigor  of 
a  born  fighter. 

In  stating  that  the  ancient  sun  worshippers  made  wreaths  of  their 
votive  offerings  to  the  sun,  I  might  mention  that  this  was  practiced  as 
late  if  not  later  than  Homer's  time.  These  wreaths  were  hung  on  a 
sacred  pole  or  fane  In  Homer's  Iliad  the  priest  Chryseis  who  has  tried  to 
secure  his  daughter's  return  to  him,  after  being  insulted  by  the  king 
prays  for  vengeance  on  the  Greeks.  He  calls  on  his  god,  the  sun  thus: 
"  Thou  source  of  light !  whom  Tenedoes  adores  and  whose  bright  pres- 
ence gilds  thy  Chryseis  shores  if  e'er  with  wreaths  I  hung  thy  sacred 
fane." 

SACK  OF  ROME 

When  the  pagan  temples  were  closed  by  the  edict  of  the  emperor, 
the  Christians  enjoyed  the  triumph  of  laughing  at  the  weakness  of  the 
pagan  gods  as  they  could  not  save  their  temples.  They  were  asked  by 
the  Christians,  "  Where  is  the  thunder  of  your  Jove  now  ? "  But  in 
410,  after  the  Goths  had  sacked  the  city  of  Rome  and  spread  fire  and 
desolation  through  the  empire  their  attention  was  called  to  warnings  of 
the  great  pagan  orator,  Symmachus,  now  that  the  cry  was  reverberating 
through  every  part  of  the  empire,  that  Christianity  was  the  cause.  That 
disaster  entered  the  empire  with  Christianity,  and  the  nation  was  smitten 


152  Modernism 

for  its  infidelity.  St.  Augustine  was  called  on  to  refute  this  charge,  but 
as  he  was  giving  all  his  spare  time  to  writing  the  City  of  God,  he 
turned  the  task  over  to  the  young  Spanish  priest  Orosius.  He  asked 
him  to  write  a  short  history  of  the  world  which  would  show  by  the 
plain  record  of  events  briefly  stated,  the  futility  of  the  charge  that 
disaster  only  entered  the  Roman  world  with  Christianity.  Orosius 
wrote  his  essay,  but  it  was  useless  to  Augustine  or  any  one  else  as 
a  refutation  of  the  charge  brought  against  Christianity  by  the  pagans. 
The  pagan  pontiffs  declared  that  the  empire  had  been  smitten  for  its 
infidelity,  and  the  thunder  of  Jove  was  seen  in  the  Sack  of  the  city  of 
Rome  and  the  desolation  worked  by  the  Goths.  The  pagan  epithet  of 
infidel  applied  to  the  Christians  has  always  been  used  by  the  priests  of 
an  older  religion  against  those  who  cease  to  be  their  followers. 

TRANSMIGRATION  OF  SOULS 

The  theory  of  Pythagoras  about  the  transmigration  of  souls  was  the 
Egyptian  theory,  that  is,  the  bodily  life  of  the  soul  is  an  imprisonment 
for  sins  that  were  committed  in  a  former  existence.  After  death  the 
soul  reaped  what  it  had  sown  in  the  present  life.  The  reward  of  the 
just  was  to  enter  at  death  the  world  of  perfect  order  and  harmony  where 
one  will  know  all  things  as  they  are,  not  as  they  seem,  in  the  highland 
regions  of  the  universe,  while  the  great  criminals  will  be  sent  to  Tartarus, 
the  deepest  and  darkest  regions  of  the  world.  The  belief  that  the  dying 
person's  mind  was  refreshed  with  the  memory  of  experiences  in  his 
former  existence,  gave  him  the  power  of  prophecy  and  divine  benediction. 
The  custom  of  dying  persons  bestowing  or  prophesying  happiness,  wealth, 
and  length  of  days,  and  bestowing  a  divine  blessing  on  his  children,  and 
cursing  those  whom  he  did  not  like,  are  connected  with  the  transmi- 
gration of  souls'  doctrine  as  taught  by  Pythagoras  and  others.  There 
are  many  explanations  as  to  what  originally  suggested  the  doctrine. 
The  base  of  course  was  natural.  A  man  died,  was  buried  five  or  six 
inches  under  ground,  grass  grew  on  his  grave,  an  ox  ate  the  grass,  a 
tiger  killed  the  ox  and  ate  it.  Now  this  is  far  enough.  First  the 
man's  soul  went  into  the  grass,  then  into  the  ox  and  finally  into  the 
tiger.  From  this  suggestion  of  the  old  seer  who  observed  what  has  been 
remarked  the  doctrine  grew  by  constant  improvements. 

ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES 

The  editor  of  the  English  translation  of  De  Ligney's  Life  of  Christ 
in  a  footnote  referring  to  Gamaliel's  discourse  as  stated  in  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles,  perpetrates  the  following  Irish  bull: 

"Josephus  in  the  twentieth  book  of  his  Antiquities  speaks  of  one 
Teodus,  who  gave  himself  out  for  a  prophet,  and  against  him  Caspus 
Fadus,  the  governor  of  Judea,  sent  out  his  troop,  who  killed  him  and 
with  him  several  of  his  followers,  the  rest  being  irretrievably  dispersed. 
This  happened  according  to  him,  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  reign  of 
Claudius.  This  is  what  puzzles  the  interpreters,  because  that  period  was 


Notes  153 

many  years  later  than  the  discourse  of  Gamaliel,  and  there  is  no  proba- 
bility that  Josephus  could  be  mistaken  forty  years  in  fixing  the  date 
of  a  public  event  which  he  said  occurred  in  his  own  time.  Let  this 
be  as  it  may,  it  is  still  certain  first  that  Gamaliel  quoted  this  fact  on  the 
present  occasion,  second,  that  he  did  so  before  men  who  were  as  well 
informed  as  himself;  third  that  these  men,  so  far  from  contradicting 
were  convinced  by  his  words;  consequently  this  fact  can  no  longer  be 
doubted.  When  there  is  positive  evidence  of  any  fact  no  other  objections 
can  be  reasonably  admitted  than  those  which  directly  bear  upon  the  proof. 
This  principle  is  certain,  and  it  alone  is  quite  enough  to  annihilate  almost 
all  objections  brought  against  religion." 

The  logic  displayed  in  the  above  argument  to  prove  how  it  was  pos- 
sible for  Gamaliel  to  refer  to  an  event  that  did  not  occur  until  40  years 
after  his  time,  has  no  comparison  in  the  world  of  letters  outside  of 
the  speech  of  Dogberry  in  the  Shakespeare  play. 

CHANGING  THE  CALENDAR 

After  everything  that  was  essential  was  accomplished,  the  Christians 
continued  to  observe  the  festivals  that  had  been  established  during  the 
prevalence  of  sun,  moon,  stars  and  fire  worship.  Under  sun  worship, 
the  sun  was  crossified  when  it  crossed  the  equinoctial  line,  and  on  the 
third  day  after  that  event,  the  sun  and  earth  was  resurrected  from  the 
death  of  winter  and  ascended  up  into  the  summer  heaven.  When  that 
system  of  religion  was  changed  and  mythical  persons  were  made  to 
personify  the  sun,  the  history  of  the  sun  in  its  course  through  the 
heavens  was  applied  to  the  personified  person,  and  the  ritual  that  had 
been  established  by  the  sun  worshippers  was  continued.  All  the  old 
festivals  that  were  celebrated  throughout  the  world  had  become  a  part 
of  the  religious  life  of  nations.  The  Christians  as  well  as  all  other 
people  observed  these  festivals.  In  the  early  part  of  the  fifth  century 
the  pagans  claimed  that  the  Christians  were  still  pagans  as  they  observed 
all  the  festivals  of  the  pagan  gods.  For  the  purpose  of  trying  to  break 
up  the  religious  ceremonies  and  customs  connected  with  the  celebration 
of  these  festivals,  the  church  adopted  a  movable  calendar  so  that  the 
crucifixion,  resurrection,  ascension  and  other  festivals  in  honor  of  Jesus 
and  Mary  should  not  be  observed  on  the  days  observed  by  the  old 
festivals,  but  the  Christians  still  persevered  in  observing  the  old  festi- 
vals. The  bishops  seeing  that  they  could  not  change  this  condition  of 
things,  adopted  a  new  plan.  Using  their  phrase,  they  "  dedicated  to 
the  honor  and  glory  of  God  everything  valuable  in  the  older  religious 
systems."  They  now  arranged  to  make  many  of  these  festival  days 
commemorations  of  the  birth  or  death  of  certain  saints.  By  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Christian  religion  by  Constantine,  a  Christian  monarch 
became  the  ruler  of  a  large  part  of  Asia,  Africa  and  all  Europe  except 
Scotland  and  Ireland.  Although  Scotland  had  not  been  overrun  by  the 
Roman  army,  by  its  close  proximity  to  England  and  as  it  was  not 
separated  by  any  sea,  it  gradually  and  eventually  adopted  many  of  the 
civilizing  laws  of  the  Romans.  When  Ambrose  compelled  the  Roman 


154  Modernism 

Senate  to  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  the  church  in  all  things  in 
which  the  church  was  interested,  the  government  became  an  instrument 
for  enforcing  the  edicts  of  the  church.  By  this  means  the  old  festival 
days  were  gradually  broken  up  wherever  the  Roman  army  was  stationed, 
and  the  days  fixed  by  the  movable  calendar  for  observing  the  cruci- 
fixion, resurrection  and  ascension,  were  observed  in  the  same  manner 
that  these  festivals  had  been  celebrated  in  the  old  system,  but  not  on 
the  same  days.  As  the  Roman  army  did  not  cross  the  Irish  sea  into 
Ireland,  the  Roman  army  could  not  compel  the  Irish  to  adopt  these 
regulations  of  the  church. 

Under  the  religious  system  of  the  Druids  which  prevailed  in  Gaul, 
England,  Scotland  and  Ireland,  the  mythical  personification  of  the  sun 
was  called  Hesus.  According  to  their  system  the  I4th  of  March  was 
the  day  on  which  Hesus  was  crucified  and  his  resurrection  occurred  on 
the  I7th  of  the  same  month.  As  in  all  other  countries  that  was  the 
great  religious  festival  day  of  spring.  Ireland  had  been  converted  by 
the  early  missionaries,  largely  through  their  efforts  to  convert  the  petty 
princes  and  chiefs  of  the  people.  After  their  conversion,  whether  it 
was  by  force  or  through  the  example  and  moral  influence  of  these 
kings  and  princes,  the  people  adopted  the  Christian  religion.  As  these 
kings  did  not  have  the  power  or  did  not  care  to  meddle  with  the  customs 
of  the  people,  the  church  authorities  at  Rome  could  not  enforce  its  edicts 
in  Ireland  as  Ireland  was  not  in  the  dominion  of  Rome.  So  the  Chris- 
tians of  Ireland  continued  to  celebrate  the  resurrection  of  Hesus  on 
the  seventeenth  of  March,  and  the  best  the  church  authorities  could  do 
in  Ireland,  about  two  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  St.  Patrick  was 
to  dedicate  the  day  to  St.  Patrick.  Therefore  you  may  observe  that  the 
Irish  Catholics  still  celebrate  the  resurrection  of  Hesus,  the  god  of  the 
Druids,  under  the  name  of  St.  Patrick.  As  they  had  no  knowledge  of 
St.  Patrick's  birthday  it  was  easy  to  do  this. 

CHRISTIAN  AND  SEMI-CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE  OF  THE 
SECOND  CENTURY 

Epistles  and  other  religious  tracts  were  written  and  in  order  that 
they  would  have  influence,  the  name  of  some  prominent  person  was 
attached  to  them,  that  the  name  would  help  to  prove  that  the  particular 
doctrines  that  the  writer  was  interested  in,  were  the  true  doctrines.  A 
very  large  amount  of  the  literature  that  was  read  in  some  of  the  early 
churches,  were  pure  invention  or  forgeries.  Some  idea  of  the  number 
of  these  gospels,  epistles,  and  other  kinds  of  Christian  and  semi-Christian 
productions  can  be  formed  by  reading  the  following,  many  of  which 
were  read  in  the  churches  even  after  it  was  known  that  they  were 
spurious:  The  gospel  of  Matthias,  the  gospel  of  Peter  the  apostle,  the 
gospel  of  James,  the  gospel  of  Barnabas,  the  gospel  of  St.  Thomas, 
the  gospel  of  Bartholomew,  the  gospel  of  Andrew,  the  gospel  of  Paul, 
the  gospel  according  to  the  Egyptians,  the  gospel  according  to  the 
Hebrews,  the  gospel  of  perfection,  the  gospel  of  Philip,  another  gospel 


Notes  155 

of  Matthew,  the  gospel  of  Judas  Iscariot,  the  gospel  of  Basillides,  the 
gospel  of  Thaddeus,  the  first  gospel  of  the  infancy  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
gospel  of  the  birth  of  Mary,  the  gospel  of  the  Scythians,  the  gospel 
of  Titian,  the  gospel  of  Life,  the  gospel  of  Eve,  the  gospel  of  Incra- 
tites,  the  gospel  of  Jude,  the  false  gospel  of  Hesychius,  the  gospel  pub- 
lished by  Lucianus,  the  gospel  of  Longinus,  the  gospel  of  Velentius, 
the  gospel  according  to  the  Nazarenes,  the  gospel  of  Nicodemus,  the 
gospel  of  Cerinthus,  the  gospel  of  truth,  the  gospel  of  Marcion,  the 
gospel  of  Apelles,  the  acts  of  Peter,  the  acts  of  Andrew,  the  acts  of 
Philip,  the  acts  of  Paul  and  Thecla,  the  acts  of  Paul,  the  acts  of  Peter 
and  Andrew,  the  acts  of  John,  the  acts  of  Mary,  acts  of  the  apostles 
used  by  the  Ebionites,  the  acts  of  the  apostles  by  Leucius,  the  acts  of 
the  apostles  used  by  the  Manicheans,  the  preaching  of  Paul,  the  preach- 
ing of  Peter,  the  doctrine  of  Peter,  the  acts  of  Philip,  the  acts  of  Thomas, 
the  acts  of  Barnabas,  the  Judgment  of  Peter,  the  Pastor  or  Shepherd,  the 
Foundation,  the  Treasure,  the  Children  of  Ada,  the  Centinetum  of  Christ, 
the  Book  of  Cepheus,  the  Pastor  of  Hermes,  the  Hymn  Taught  by  Christ, 
the  Revelation  of  Paul,  the  Revelation  of  Peter,  the  Revelation  of 
Thomas,  the  Revelation  of  Stephen,  the  transitus  of  Mary,  the  Penitential 
Acts  of  Addo,  the  Testament  of  Job,  the  Penitence  of  Jannes  and  Mam- 
bres,  the  Praise  of  the  Apostles,  the  Canons  of  the  Apostles,  the  Reve- 
lation of  Moses,  the  Revelation  of  Bartholomew,  the  Revelation  of  Cer- 
inthus, the  Revelation  of  Esdres,  the  Testament  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs, 
the  Sibyline  Oracles,  an  Epistle  of  Christ  to  Peter  and  Paul,  the  Epistle 
of  Christ  produced  by  the  Manicheans,  the  Epistle  of  Themison,  Epistles 
of  Paul  to  Seneca  and  Seneca  to  Paul,  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  the 
Epistle  to  the  Magnesians,  the  Epistle  of  the  Trallians  to  the  Smyrneans, 
the  Epistle  of  Jesus  Christ  to  Abgarus,  King  of  Edessa,  and  of  Abgarus 
to  Jesus  Christ,  and  many  others.  There  are  over  thirty  acts  alone,  and 
many  unmentioned  gospels  and  epistles. 

In  a  book  called  "  The  Apocryphal  New  Testament,"  which  can  be 
bought  for  a  dollar,  are  the  following:  The  gospel  of  the  Birth  of  Mary, 
the  gospel  of  James  or  the  Protevangelion,  the  gospel  of  the  Infancy  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  epistles  of  Jesus  Christ  and  King  Abgarus  of  Edessa, 
the  gospel  of  Nicodemus,  formerly  called  the  acts  of  Pilate,  the  Apostles 
Creed  before  it  was  interpolated,  the  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Laodiceans, 
the  Epistles  of  Paul  and  Seneca,  the  acts  of  Paul  and  Thecla,  the  Epistle 
of  Clement  to  the  Corinthians,  the  General  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  the 
Epistle  of  Ignatius  to  the  Ephesians,  the  Epistle  of  Ignatius  to  the 
Magnesians,  Epistle  of  Ignatius  to  the  Trallians,  Epistle  of  Ignatius  to  the 
Romans,  to  the  Smyrneans,  to  Polycarp,  of  Polycarp  to  the  Philippians, 
the  Shepherd  of  Hermes,  Letters  of  Herod  and  Pilate  relating  to  Jesus. 

MAN  AND  HIGHER  APES  BLOOD  RELATIONS 

I  forgot  to  mention  in  the  proper  place  that  the  blood  of  the  higher 
apes  and  man  can  be  injected  into  the  veins  of  each  other  without  injury. 
This  is  one  of  the  strongest  evidences  of  man's  descent  from  the  ape 
familv. 


TITLES  OF  SEVERAL  OF  THE  AUTHOR'S 
PUBLISHED  LECTURES 

Delivered  in  Albany,  Troy,  Saratoga,  Boston, 
New  York  and  other  places 


Poetry 

Dreams 

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Prison  Reform 

English  Essayists 

Adam  and  Eve 

Thanksgiving 

Elisee  Reclus'  Earth 

Comets,  Meteors  and  Nebula 

Science  versus  Theology 

Constructive  Philosophy 

Political  Organization 

Washington  Centennial  Anniversary 

Jefferson  Anniversary 

Democracy 
Protection  and  Reciprocity 

Inspiration 
Freedom  of  Worship 

The  Pope's  Attitude  to  Republican  Institutions 
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Shakespeare 
Albany  Bi-Centennial  Address 


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STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $t.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


«U6     y  ,934 

n^iiy  

Rrr-o  LD 

rrn  n      j- 

FEB  21  1961 

i 

PEG'DLb   JA 

N  '6  1  72  -Ii  AM  U  1 

T.r»  01     i  nrkw.-T  »QQ 

YC  31676' 


740469 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


